Foster Mermaid Rangers book two All In The Family
by catlovingmermaid
Summary: When Rita escapes Zordon recruits his foster children to become power rangers. Can they survive high school, being superheroes, and mermaids?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: here we go Foster Mermaid Ranger Book Two: Family of Heroes. This is equivalent to Mighty Morphin Power Ranger season one. When Zordon's sister Rita escapes she is bent on destroying earth. Can Jason and his siblings handle high school, being superheroes, and being mermaids.**

...

Chapter one

Kimberly Ann Hart-Ranger sat in her window seat reading one of her fashion magazines. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in the middle of April and the teenage girl was enjoying the sun warming her through the large window.

She glanced up at the old butterfly shaped clock that still hung on the wall, it was nine o'clock, years ago it had been a birthday present from her biological parents, it was one of the two things she still had from them, the other being an old stuff dog. They had abandoned her when she was in first grade, but some times she wondered what her life would have been like if they hadn't left.

The sounds of doors opening and closing told her that her siblings were up and about. Somewhere down the hall a shower turned on, Jason, her older brother, must have got back from his morning jog.

She let out a sigh, noting the smell of bacon in the air, she glanced once more at the clock, should she get dressed before going downstairs?

She shrugged, there was no rule against eating breakfast in her pajamas and she really didn't want to get dress until she knew what the others were doing. The mall, the youth center, the beach, each one required a different outfit. There was always an adventure when she was with her five adoptive siblings.

Kapow, Kim's doe eyes grew wide as she glanced out the window to figure out where the explosion had came from. Smoke bellowed from her one brother's lab in the massive back yard.

Jumping up she grabbed her robe and started to hurry down the hall, suddenly she bumped into something solid, and wet. Kim quickly dodged around Jason, wiping the water off her face with the sleeve of her robe, mentally telling herself, not now, not now, I can't grow a tail right now.

"Hey, Kim, where's the fire?" Another voice called out, Zack had poked his head out of his room. He would be fourteen in a little over a week.

"Billy's lab," she shouted as she started down the stairs.

...

Billy buried his head in his head, first he had accidentally crossed wires that shouldn't have been crossed, causing an explosion that nearly burn down his lab, then he couldn't keep up with everyone else in his karate class.

"For your very first class you did very good,"Jason tried to comfort him.

"You did better than Bulk," eleven year old Lori stated, brushing a stand of red hair out of her face as she plopped down next to her brother. Her green eyes gleaming with laughter as she remembered how the bully had face planted it are trying to do a spinning tornado kick.

"You did great," Trini added.

"Yeah, we were watching," Kim hoped that wouldn't make him more upset knowing his siblings had watched him fail.

"When is Ernie going to bring our food, I'm starved." Zack declared just as Ernie arrived with their drinks.

"Food will be out in a minute," he told them. Just then the ground stated to shake, "earthquake, everyone remain calm!" He ordered.

...

Zordon had teleported to the command center as soon as he felt the earthquake. Alpha was running around panicking with his teddy bear clutched to his chest.

Zordon quick reached out an grabbed him by the shoulder, "Relax, Rita must have escaped, she's attacking the earth. I need you to teleport..."

"No," Alpha interrupted, "I know what you are going to say and no teenagers!"

"Kimberly, Jason, Zack, Billy, and Trini here." Zordon finished, giving Alpha a strange look, he must be watching to many soap operas about moody teens.

...

Back at the youth center Jason was trying to get his younger siblings to safety when suddenly he and the others disappeared in a flash of light.

Lori looked around, "Jason! Where did you go? You were suppose to watch after me! That's what being a big brother is about!"

...

Kim slowly got up from where she had landed, "this isn't exactly the mall is it," she said, slipping into Eltarian, looking around in amazement. It was some sort of computer, control room place with tons of buttons.

"This place is magnificent," Billy exclaimed, pushing his glasses up his nose. The others quietly talked between them wondering how they got there and where they where.

"Maybe I can find answers," Billy said looking at all the different controls.

"No, don't touch that," a voice called out behind them as a little robot run forward. As it tripped and fell, Billy helped it up with an exclamation of wonder on how advanced the technology was.

"Hello children," a familiar voice called behind them.

The teens whirled around, shocked to see their father there.

"Pip, what is going on?" Kim asked, using the Eltarian version of dad.

Zordon sighed as he explained about the escape of his sister Rita and her plan to destroy the world.

"What does that have to do with us?" Trini asked.

Zordon sighed, "I need you to become an elite fighting force called power rangers."

Zack stared in disbelief, their dad wanted him to be a superhero, to fight a supervillian. What was he thinking? He didn't have super powers like Billy and Kim. He wasn't even fourteen yet. He wasn't even in high school yet.

"It's been real, but I've got to bounce."

Jason watched as his siblings turned to leave, he understood that their dad was asking a lot, but what about all the things Zordon had done for them. He had taken them in when they had nowhere else to go. Rescued them when they were kidnapped, and gave them a loving home. Wasn't this a good way to pay him back?

"Yo, Jas, you coming?" Zack called out.

Jason glanced at their father one last time, maybe he could talk his siblings into helping?


	2. Chapter 2

Jason watched as his siblings turned to leave, he understood that their dad was asking a lot, but what about all the things Zordon had done for them. He had taken them in when they had nowhere else to go. Rescued them when they were kidnapped, and gave them a loving home. Wasn't this a good way to pay him back?

"Yo, Jas, you coming?" Zack called out.

Jason glanced at their father one last time, maybe he could talk his siblings into helping?

He shook his head, following after them, "Guys come on, this is Pip we are talking about, don't you think we aught to at least try to help, come on think about everything he has done for us. Can't we help him for once?"

Zack shook his head, "Dude, he asked us to be superheroes, Kim and Billy are the only ones who have powers."

Kim shrugged, "I don't see how freezing water is a super power? Trust me, being a mermaid isn't all it is cracked up to be. Try not being able to go to the popular girl's pool party because you don't want to grow a tail."

As the siblings bickered on rather or not Billy and Kim's mermaid powers made them more qualified to be superheroes when clay men with no faces attacked.

Jason and Zack quickly teamed up while the others fend for themselves, Trini doing all right. Kim was able to freeze the ground underneath the clay men, causing them to slip and slide. Billy however couldn't use his powers without any surface water available.

The clay men soon had Billy thrown against the cliff. Kim slipped on her own ice patch and crashed into him, Trini following soon after.

Jason shook his head as Kim and Trini caught him as he fell, he had to do something. He quickly pulled out the belt buckle Zordon had given them, "Pip says these will give us powers, let's do it!"

...

Lori frowned, going to the counter, "Ernie, have you seen Jason and the others?"

The kind man shook his head at the young girl, "No I haven't, maybe they went home?"

"Maybe," Lori muttered, leaving the youth center.

She was cutting through the business district an area that was basically a ghost town on Saturday when she saw it. Five people in special suits fighting a golden monkey face dude. Suddenly the monkey face dude grew to the size of a skyscraper and the superheroes called vehicles shaped like dinosaurs to fight the monkey.

"Wow," Lori exclaimed, "The others aren't going to believe this!"

...

Billy hurried into the house, "Hi, Mrs. Calloway, I'm home, I'll be in my lab if you need me." Now was the perfect time to finish his latest invention, he had a feeling they were going to put it into good use.

"Billy!" Lori cried out jumping up as her older brother walked by the kitchen table, "you will never believe what I saw this afternoon!"

Billy patted her head, "That's nice Lori, I have something I need to do, We'll talk later."

" What are you doing? Can I help? Did I tell you I saw superheroes?" Lori asked, following him out the back door and into his lab.

"That is very delightful." Billy stated, sitting down on his stool by his workbench.

Lori plopped down on another stool, "What does it take to be a superhero? I mean we aren't superheroes, yet we have powers, and we have enemies, Dr. Denman, so how do we get the super suits?"

"If you insist on vocalizing about your imaginary creations can you at least pass me my screwdriver."

"But Billy," Lori whined, handing him the requested tool, "You're smart, how would you go about getting a super suit?"

Billy sighed, "You take something embedded with the same magical energies as the power and link it to a vocal stimulation activation."

Lori jumped up, "Thanks Billy," she shouted as she raced out of the door, she needed to get to the Moon Cove up in the mountain. Surely she could find something there.

She was walking on the bank of the stream that originated at moon cove when she saw it, something glittering in the water. She stopped, curiousity getting the best of her, before looking around, making sure she was alone and diving in.

As soon as she touched the water she felt weird, like a bee was buzzing right underneath her skin. It grew and grew until, with a flash of light her legs disappeared and a golden tail took their place. She scrambled at the bottom of the stream bed, looking for the thing that caught her attention in the first place.

Soon she was dry on the bank, a golden coin clutched in her hand. She held it up to the sunlight, it looked brand new, how long had it been under water? The tween red head squinted her eyes, there was some sort of picture on it. A long neck dinosaur, with fins instead of legs, "An Elasmosaurus!" She cried out, there was a reason she was the top student in her sixth grade class.

She jumped up, her tail gone and her capris back, "I have to show this to the others!"

...

As she run into the youth center, shouting, "Guys, guys look what I..." She trailed off when she saw Billy simply disappeared in a flash of blue light, "Come on, why do you keep doing this, uncool Billy, uncool!"

With a huff she spun on her heels, storming out of the center grumbling about her siblings avoiding her. Maybe she should just go to the moon cove. She better get going if she wanted to get there and back before the full moon rises.

Taking a short cut that they had discovered years ago while suffering from moon madness, Lori soon arrived at the place where she, Kim and Billy were transformed into mermaids when she was four. Now where did the magic come from?


	3. Chapter 3

As she run into the youth center, shouting, "Guys, guys look what I..." She trailed off when she saw Billy simply disappeared in a flash of blue light, "Come on, why do you keep doing this, uncool Billy, uncool!"

With a huff she spun on her heels, storming out of the center grumbling about her siblings avoiding her. Maybe she should just go to the moon cove. She better get going if she wanted to get there and back before the full moon rises.

Taking a short cut that they had discovered years ago while suffering from moon madness, Lori soon arrived at the place where she, Kim and Billy were transformed into mermaids when she was four. Now where did the magic come from?

...

Jason and the others crouched behind the crop of rocks, "I hope Pip figures out what that device is that Rita sent down."

"I still can't believe Rita is Zordon's twin sister," Zack added peering up over the ledge.

"What are the putties up too?" Kim whispered.

"We'll just stay here and keep an eye on them." Jason insisted shifting slightly

"Ummm," Billy called out glancing behind them, "I don't think that is a valiant option anymore."

"What are you talking about, this is perfect camouflage."

Trini tugged on Zack's sleeve, "It was until ten seconds ago," she said, pointing to the putties behind them.

...

Lori was about to give up, she had no idea what she was looking for in the first place and she was hearing what she was sure was fighting when she saw it, something glittering in the sunlight at the bottom of the pool.

The young red head dove under the water, turning into a mermaid at first contact with the water. Down she went. Deeper and deeper, until she was at the bottom of the pool. There embedded in the rock face of the pool was a blue crystal.

Smiling, she grabbed the crystal, and expecting it to be hard to pull out yanked on the crystal. However the crystal didn't give any fight at all, sending her head over tail across the pool.

There was no denying the power coming from it.

"Billy! You're too high! Be careful! You'll fall!" Trini's voice called up filled with panic.

What was Billy and Trini doing there? Where the others with them? Just then there was a clattering noise as pebbles and shale tumbled into the small cave and into the pool with a mighty splash. As she moved out of the way something else fell in as well.

Racing after it she caught it before it hit the bottom. Surfacing again she gasped. It was some sort of electronic belt buckle and in the middle was a gold coin like the one she had found earlier only it had a triceratops on it. There was no questioning the power coming from it. "This has to belong to a Power Ranger," Lori muttered to herself, "And the only ones her besides me are Trini and Billy, which means... my siblings are superheroes and they won't allow me to help them.

She quickly dried off again and scrambled out of the crevice. She will show her siblings, she'll show them. Just wait and see, they'll be begging her to be a superhero by the time she was done. She looked up when a pebble bounced off her shoe. Billy was really, really close to the edge.

"Billy duck!" She shouted, as she rose her arms into what she canned get power position. She didn't understand why but her powers, and those of her siblings with mermaid powers tend to be activated when their hands where in a specific position, and the strength of the magic depended on their arm positions.

Billy ducked as Lori sent a blast of water from her hand, hitting the putty in the chest with the force of a fire hose. The putty looked shocked before bursting into a thousand pieces. Lori scrambled up next to him as Trini finally made her way to the top, "Lori where did you come from?" She demanded.

Lori rolled get eyes, "From the Moon Cavern, I found something really cool." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the belt buckle thing that had fallen in. By the way, Billy, you dropped this." She casually tossed it at her older brother as she walked past, "Come on, looks like the others need our help."

...

"What in the... who in the... what was that!?" Rita screeched, trying to figure out who the little kid was who was defeating her putties as easily as playing a game.

"I don't know my queen," Finster said, "She doesn't appear to be a Power Ranger though."

"Send down Bones to distract the rangers from this girl and capture her. She seems powerful." Rita ordered.

...

Jason, Zack, Trini, Kimberly, and Billy felt foolish. There was five of them and they had been beaten soundly by the putties only for their baby sister to defeat them easily. Maybe it was because, like most humans, the putty patrollers underestimated just how talented this girl was. Or it could have been the fact that they were made out of clay and she had built in fire hoses for arms.

Lori kicked, flipped, threw and sprayed the putties away. Soon the few remaining ones fled, obviously terrified.

Lori wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, "That was fun, what next?"

Jason's mouth was hanging open as he tried to form a coherent response, "How... wha.. that was..." just then he realized that she used a complex karate kick that he hadn't shown her yet, perfectly, "You've been pretending not to know karate!"

Lori's eyes were round with shock, "I must be really good at pretending. I didn't know I could do that either. I was just doing what I see you guys doing all the time." She turned to Jason, "Since I know karate and can fight better than you can I be a power ranger too?"

"They ambushed us and you had the element of surprise," Jason protested, "you did not fight better than us, and how did you know we were the power rangers?"


	4. Chapter 4

"They ambushed us and you had the element of surprise," Jason protested, "you did not fight better than us, and how did you know we were the power rangers?"

Lori shrugged, "I'm smart, I put two and two together. So can I please."

Jason shook his head, ruffling her hair, "Sorry squirt, you're too young."

"I'm not that much younger than Trini!"

"Twenty three months! Lori, that's a big difference. Besides this isn't a game, this is dangerous work." Jason insisted.

"Gah, Jason," Lori groaned throwing her hands up in the air, "I'm almost twelve, you can't keep treating me like a baby!" With that Lori stormed off, grumbling under her breath, too young? She just saved their necks and they claimed she was too young?

She'll show them, she'll become the greatest Power Ranger of all, and then they will beg her to be on their team just watch and see, it will happen.

Just then Jason's communicator beeped, Lori watched in awe as her older siblings morphed and teleported out. So that was how they did it. She turned around to leave only to come face to face with the golden monkey face dude.

Lori dropped into the same fighting position Jason almost always takes, "You're that gold monkey face dude that my siblings were fighting earlier today!"

Goldar laughed, blocking a pathetic blow from the little girl before knocking her out and swinging her over his shoulder, he didn't know what the putties problems were this had been an easy kidnapping.

...

Lori woke up with a groan, "Gah, what happened? Where am I?" She looked around, a bench bed, blank walls and bars on the window and door. She found out that if she stood on tippy toes while standing on the bench like bed she could see out the window.

"If I didn't know better I'll say that I'm on the Moon." she plopped down on the bed, "What happens when you put a mermaid whose powers are strengthened by the Moon on the Moon?" She asked herself.

Before she could figure out just how powerful her powers had become, because she was sure she had become supercharged, she heard an angry voice call out, "What! Those little pests defeated Bones! I'm not done yet, send down a giant!"

Lori shook her head in amusement, that woman had a lot more to worry about than her siblings destroying her stuff. Now just how supercharge was she?

 _Check your pockets, my daughter._

Lori shot straight up, panic in her eyes, she knew that voice, it was the voice that she always heard during the full moon, it was the voice of the moon.

Lori scrambled through her pockets pulling out a gold coin from one and a clear blue crystal. She placed them, touching, on the bed next to her. Almost immediately they started to glow an aquamarine color.

Lori blinked as the light finally faded away, there in front of her stood a morpher like the ones that her older siblings had. She smiled, they were going to regret messing with her. She took a step forward towards the door, outside the monkey dude from earlier was standing guard.

"Hey," Lori called out, "What happens when you put a mermaid on the moon?"

The monkey glared at her, "Shut up, you pesky brat, I'm not falling for that."

Lori shrugged kicking the door open with a swift kick, "Should have listened to me, the answer is a supercharged power ranger."

She grabbed the morpher from the bench and, holding it up, shouted, "Elasmosaurus!" The change was immediate, her body started to tingle like it did whenever she turned into a mermaid. Soon she was a half a foot taller and wearing an aquamarine power suit that matched her sibling's suits.

Giving Goldar a smirk she tapped her morpher and teleported out of there.

...

Alpha and Zordon were watching the power rangers fight the giant, or at least Jason was fighting the giant, when somebody teleported into the command center.

"Hi, Pip, " the aqua ranger said, pulling her helmet off with a grin.

"Lori!" Zordon exclaimed, whirling around to face his youngest daughter. She had her helmet tucked under her arm, "how did you find the Elasmosaurus power coin? How did you recharge it? The Elasmosaurus power coin was lost millennium ago."

"A blue moon crystal from Mermaid Cove, " Lori explained, "That got supercharged when a golden monkey face dude kidnapped me and took me to the moon."

Zordon shook his head in wonder, out of all of his kids, Lori seemed to be the one that got into trouble the most, "Well, I guess I can't do much about that but say welcome to the team."

Alpha nodded his head, handing her a bunch of watches, "I got the communicators working, can you take them to your siblings?"

...

Jason, Trini, Billy, and Kim were sitting around a table at the youth center when Ernie walked by, "Did you hear about that group of superheroes that fought a monster at the amusement park?" he asked someone, "They call themselves the Power Rangers."

Jason and his siblings exchanged looks, they were famous. As they talked they got up and walked over to the climbing rope.

"Roar!" a person in a mask roared, sneaking up behind Trini, causing her to jump up and climb the rope.

At this moment Lori showed up, "Hi everyone, " She craned her head back, "Trini what are you doing up there?" she turned over to the man in the mask, "cool mask Zack."

Zack pulled the mask off, "Man you are one tough cookie, you weren't even phased."

"Goldar, at least that what Pip calls him, kidnapped me and took me to the moon." she leaned closer to her siblings, "Do you know what happens to a mermaid when she's on the moon?"

She smiled big at the confused look they gave her, "Let's just say, I joined a special team, they just don't know it."

Jason groaned, "You didn't..."

"Pip said I could!" Lori insisted.


	5. Chapter 5

Lori quickly ran down the stairs, her hands full with ribbons and other stuff she had found in the craft room, now all she needed was to get it to the youth center without Zack seeing her.

"Hey Lori," A voice called behind her causing her to wince, turning around at the same time as she hid the bundle behind her back.

"Hi, Zack," Lori said with a nervous laugh.

"What are you doing?" her older brother asked, trying to see what she was hiding behind her back.

"Nothing," Lori insisted, "I've got to go." with that she turned around and fled down the stairs and outside.

* * *

At the youth center Billy was dancing around, listening to something on his walkman, "You're right Kimberly this composition of melody transcends all previous of this gendre."

Kim looked at Trini, who she was helping design a banner for Zack's birthday the next day, "Translation?"

"He likes the music," Trini said.

Lori entered, "Phew, Zack almost caught me!" she exclaimed as she dropped the ribbons and other decorations on one of the tables. She glanced at Billy's newest gadget, "Uh, is it suppose to be making that noise Ernie?" she asked.

Ernie quickly opened the door of the device and gasped as he was sprayed with cake batter, "Billy!"

Kim quickly ran over to Billy and got his attentions, "Billy! Billy!" Billy removed his headphones, "Glad you like the grooves, but I think Ernie needs your help."

Billy blushed slightly as he hurried over, already figuring out what was wrong with it.

After that things calmed down some as they worked on decorating the Youth Center, until Ernie, fresh out of the shower rushed in, "I saw Zack out the window, he's heading this way."

"Quick," Jason ordered, "Put everything away." They hurried around, putting the decorations in hiding places throughout the Youth Center before diving behind the counter as Zack walked in.

"Hi Ernie, what's up with the late hour?" Zack asked.

"Just catching up with some paperwork, and I'm all alone too." Ernie stated.

"Hey you haven't seen the others have you, Mrs Calloway said that they were here?"

"Nope just me, my popcorn, and paperwork, some tables and chairs..." under the counter Lori groaned, keep this up and Zack will get suspicious.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get the picture," Zack stated, "Hey if you see them let them know that I'm looking for them."

"Sure no problem," Ernie stated.

* * *

Zack whistled a little tune as he walked the halls of Angel Grove High, he smiled when he saw Kimberly, who had left for school early for cheerleader practice, "Hi Kim, quick question, do I look older to you."

"Older?" Kim asked, trying hard to keep a straight face.

"Yes, come on you should remember something."

"No," Kim said, "Oh my goodness," she exclaimed, suddenly remembering something they hadn't done yet.

"You just remember something," Zack prompted.

"Yes and I feel just terrible," Kim added, how in the world could they have forgotten to get a present for Zack?

"Don't worry people forget stuff all the time," Zack assured her.

"I just hope that...she can forgive me," Kim finished.

"Of course I'll, did you say 'she'," Zack asked.

"Yes, my... poodle, it's her birthday and I totally forgot to buy her a birthday present."

As soon as Zack walked away Jason and Billy walked up, "You guys, he thinks that we forgot his birthday? Is this such a good idea."

"Of course," Billy stated, "His feeling of disappointment now will only serve as his feeling of enjoyment later on."

"Yeah," Jason agreed, "He'll be so surprised we will have to pull him off the ceiling," Jason shrugged, "He'll be okay until then."

* * *

Zack grumbled to himself as he left the hiking trail behind and headed to the rocky outcrop that he often came to when he wanted to be alone, "I can't believe that they all forgot my birthday, they knew it was coming up, but they are all so busy with their own lives that they can't remember little old me," he plopped down on a rock with a sigh.

"Phew," Lori's voice sounded behind him, "You are hard to follow."

Zack whirled around to face his younger sister, "What are you doing here?"

"Following you," Lori stated, tilting her head to the side, "didn't I just say that?"

"Why?" Zack asked.

"Uh..." Lori had to think fast, she couldn't just tell him that she was following him to make sure he didn't go to the youth center before the party so he didn't see the preparations, "I was practicing my tracking skills, like Nancy Drew, I want to be a detective when I grow up."

Zack couldn't help but chuckle a little at Lori's innocents, ruffling her hair, "And what great mystery are you trying to solve this time?"

"The perfect Birthday present," Lori announced, with an impish grin, indeed the party would be the perfect birthday present if she could keep Zack away from the Youth Center.

"I'm glad somebody remembered my birthday," Zack sighed, "The others forgot."

"I didn't forget," an evil voice announced, the two rangers looked towards the voice to see Rita, "In fact I planned a birthday party for you, we're even taping it." With that she gestured to Squat and Baboo who were holding a boom mike and camera.

"Yeah," one of the henchmen added, "We even got you a present."

"It's called the nasty knight," another minion announced.

Lori and Zack looked at each other, and Zack thought he was having a bad day already, before morphing.

* * *

Zack frowned as his siblings insisted that they go to the Youth Center, after the day he had he just wanted to go home. Having most of his siblings forget about his birthday was upsetting, having to fight one of Rita's monsters with just his baby sister for help was challenging, thank goodness Pip had sent the others as soon as he could.

The battle had been insane, the monster had damaged their power weapons, though he had to laugh that Lori had thrown herself onto the ground and screamed when she notice the damaged done to her trident. Sometimes she was a little to melodramatic.

As they entered the youth center he noticed something, "Why is it so dark? Where's Ernie?"

Then the lights flipped on and everyone there, which consisted of at least half of the student body of Angel Grove High, shouted, "Surprise Happy Birthday Zack."

Zack laughed as he hugged his siblings.

Zack ran forward, only to stop and turn towards Kim, "Since when did you have a poodle, does Pip know?"

"I panicked," Kim confessed.

"Was I right," Lori demanded, "Is this the best Birthday present ever?"

Zack laughed, "Yes Lori I think it is."


	6. Chapter 6

Lori quickly, but neatly folded her dance clothes and stuffed them in her bag, she was suppose to meet up with her friend Willie and Billy to discuss their ideas for the Junior science fair entry. She slung her bag over her shoulder and was almost out the door when one of the instructors stopped her. It wasn't even one of her instructors, she was the instructors for the older kids and the reason Kim and Zack quit dance in the first place.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Lori gave her a look, she's got to be kidding me, "I'm headed to the Youth Center."

"No you are not," the instructor insisted, "You will sit with the rest of your class and wait for your mom to come pick you up."

"Well then," Lori said sitting down next to one of the other girls in her dance class, she leaned over and whispered, "She says I can't leave until my mom picks me up."

The other girl giggled, "But, you don't have a mom, do you?"

Lori shook her head, "No, and Pip, you know my dad, told me to walk over to the youth center after dance. So she's basically holding me against my will."

When the parents arrived to pick up children, Lori once again tried to slip out, and once again was stopped by the one teacher, grr, she thought, she hasn't even read my file.

"I've already told you, I can't have you walking around the streets by yourself, you have to wait for your mother."

Lori turned around to face her, crossing her arms in defiance, "Look, we both don't want to waste our lives waiting for someone we know isn't going to show up, so if you excuse me, I'm meeting up with my siblings and a friend at the Youth Center."

Billy looked through the string of code, "Here," he announced, pointing out one section, "That's your problem."

Lori looked at it, before quickly fixing the code, "Thanks Billy I think we are ready for test subjects."

"Do you think the others are willing to help?"

"I'll get them!" Lori volunteered, dashing off.

She entered the house through the door in the kitchen and hurried to the front entry way staircase, only to stop, a social worker was talking to her father.

"Lorelei has been crossing the street to the youth center after dance class for the past three years, so unless she crossed the road without looking both ways, I don't see the problem."

Lori saddled past them, "Just to be clear, I didn't say that no one would pick me up, I just said that my mom wouldn't pick me up. She was very clear that my mom had to be the one to pick me up." with that she rushed upstairs to fetch Zack, Kim, Trini and Jason.

Zordon looked at the social worker with an amused look, "Well then, I guess that clears it up, Please inform whoever made the call that as long as the child can cross the street safely it is not illegal for her to do so."

By this point Lori and the rest of her siblings ran past, heading out back to Billy's lab, Zordon turned to follow them, "My Housekeeper, Mrs Calloway will show you the way out, have a good day."

Willie laughed as Bulk and Skull, who had been mucking around with the other contestants inventions stepped out of the automatic fashion designer, both of them wearing dresses and high heels. Lori smiled, "You'd think by now they would know better than to mess with my older siblings."

The main judge, a professor from the local college walked over as soon as Bulk and Skull left, "What's going on here, Willie?"

"Professor," Willie began but the professor interrupted.

"This isn't a playground, your reckless behavior could wreck havoc on the other contestants inventions. You're disqualified."

"What!" Willie and Lori exclaimed at once. They hadn't done anything wrong.

"Look sir it wasn't their fault," Billy stated.

"My decision is final." With that he stormed off.

"I can't seem to do anything right," Willie cried, running off, Billy, Jason, and Zack chasing after him.

After they left, Lori threw herself at the wall, arms folded, "We worked really hard on this, and now nobody will know."

Kim perched her lips, giving Trini a look that she had only seen on Kim's face twice before, once when her mom made a surprise visit and once when Zack's parents tried to get custody of him again. She was beyond furious. Now unlike Lori, who has a some what short fuse, Kim rarely gets angry, but when she did, beware.

She stormed up to the judging table, Trini and Lori following close behind, "What gives you permission to act like a complete jerk. You can't just go up to people and disqualify them a chance to explain themselves."

"I don't need him to explain himself, I saw it with my own two eyes. Not that I'm not surprise he and his partner are foster children."

"Lorelei is no longer considered a foster child, she was adopted years ago," Kim exclaimed, truly seeing red, behind her Trini and Lori started to back up slowly, they knew when Kim stepped over the point of no return and saying anything disrespectful about foster children always got her to that point, no matter what, "You can't judge children for their circumstances that they have no control over. Just like you can't judge me for coming from a home with lots of children and a single dad."

…

Lori stood in the command center tapping her fingers as she watched her older siblings fight the monster, after ripping into the professor and convincing him that he needed to let Willie and Lori participate they had gone after Willie as well, only to discover that Rita had captured him.

"The main eye isn't with the rest of his body," Zordon murmured, "It's probably in the woods, nearby hiding," He shifted his eyes to his youngest, "Go see if you can't locate the main eye, one zap from your trident should be enough."

Lori nodded excitedly before morphing and moving out.

…

Willie placed his lucky cap back on as they walked into the Youth Center, and gasped, the professor and Ernie were playing their virtual reality game. After apologizing the professor pinned the first prize ribbon on him.

Lori leaned over to Kim and whispered, "Do you think we actually won it, or is he just trying to kiss up so you don't go to the press?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Kim stated in that tone of voice only used when lying.


	7. Chapter 7

Tommy Oliver scolded as he glared out the window, typical, just typical, getting put in a new home in a new school district three weeks before school let out for the summer. It wasn't that he hadn't been suspecting it, in fact he was surprised he had lasted as long as he did in his last home seeing as he didn't exactly see eye to eye with the mom.

The social worker glanced over at the moody teen, "Come on, it's not that bad, they have a free gym and a martial arts club. In fact, I believe there is a competition this weekend."

Tommy gave her a sideways look, "So, I won't be around long enough to join the club, they'll ship me off just like the last family."

The social worker sighed, "This is going to be different," she promised.

"Yeah, well that is what you said the last twenty times."

"Thomas, the problem here is your attitude."

"Yeah, whatever," he said, rolling his eyes before turning to watch a group of friends goofing off on the sidewalk. Friends, huh, he didn't see the point of making friends, after all by the time summer was over he would have been in three different homes, "and it's Tommy."

The social worker sighed, this home better work out for him, she was running out of places to put him. She will have to put him in a group home or see if Zordon Ranger wants to take in a new ward, but she doubted it. He already had five teenagers and another two years away.

Outside of the car, Tommy watched a group of teenagers walk by, tossing a volleyball between them. Tommy snorted, they all had brand name clothes on, probably from some of the wealthy families in the area.

...

Billy smiled as he tagged Kimberly in, after school they had all headed to the park to play volleyball, and Kim had volunteered to run home and grab a picnic basket full of snacks.

He grabbed one of the glasses of lemonade and took a sip as Trini called out that it was the game point. However, before she could serve they were attacked by putties.

Lori dodged around her siblings looking around, a teenager, around her older siblings ages, was watching them. A certain kind of look in his eyes, as if he wasn't sure if he should help them or not. There was one thing for sure, she had never seen him around before.

"Hi," she said, coming up in front of him, "I'm Lorelei, what's your name?"

"Tommy," the boy said, shortly, eyeing the little girl's turquiose jumper and white Mary Janes , "What's going on?"

Lori shrugged, "You must be new to Angel Grove, everyone here knows about Putty attacks. If you know martial arts great, if not take shelter and wait for the power rangers to come.

By this point the fight was over and the teens headed to the picnic table, "Do you want to meet my siblings, they're super nice and friendly and they're your age."

Tommy shook his head, "No thanks I'm not into the whole making friends thing."

Lori grabbed his hand and started to drag him over to the others, "What kind of attitude is that? Whoever heard of someone who doesn't want friends, I bet you change your mind once you meet the others."

...

Jason frowned as Kim and Billy knocked over the glasses of lemonade, this wasn't like them at all, and the way they talked to Trini was weird too.

"Hey, guys!" Lori called out, dragging a tall muscular boy with long brown hair with her, "This is Tommy, he's new in town."

Jason smiled, it would be just like Lori to do something like this, "Hi, I'm Jason and these are my siblings Trini, Zack, Kimberly, Billy, and well you already met Lori. I hope she didn't cause any trouble, she gets overzealous sometimes, she picked it up from Kim here."

Tommy almost blushed as the other boy nodded towards the most beautiful girl he ever saw, caramel colored hair and soft doe colored eyes. She, however, wasn't all that interested in him, "Like where did you get your shirt, the dumpster?" she asked.

"Yeah," the glasses wearing kid agreed, "the dumpster?" With that he and Kimberly walked off.

"I'm sorry Tommy," Lori exclaimed, "I wanted to help you make new friends, Kim and Billy are usually so nice, I don't know what is wrong with them today."

Tommy shrugged, "Like I said I'm not into the whole making friends thing," he looked around briefly, "I have to go."

...

Zordon frowned, "Where are Billy and Kimberly?"

His other children exchanged glances, "Probably kicking a sick puppy, or something," Lori explained, "They are acting as if they have moon madness, but the moon's not up and it's not a full moon anyway."

Trini nodded, "They were totally horrible to this new boy we met at the park."

"They were fine until the putty attack," Jason added.

Zordon sighed, standing up, "Stay here, I'll have Alpha look into what is going on while I go look for them. I don't need those two getting into trouble."

As soon as he left Lori asked, "Did anyone else notice the look Tommy got on his face when he saw Kim? At least before Kim opened her mouth."

"What are you talking about?"

Lori rolled her eyes, "Guys, he liked what he saw, he thought she was cute, and I bet that Kim thinks he's cute too, at least she would have if she hadn't gone all crazy."

"So?"

"So, Kim is the nicest person we know and Tommy looks like he could be very nice and all he needs is for him to have a special friend, so what if Kim was that special friend, you know like a girlfriend?"


	8. Chapter 8

"So, Kim is the nicest person we know and Tommy looks like he could be very nice and all he needs is for him to have a special friend, so what if Kim was that special friend, you know like a girlfriend?"

Chapter Eight:

Tommy nervously entered the high school, at his old place the middle school and high school were divided into two schools, here in Angel Grove they were combined so instead of being one of the oldest students he was one of the younger students.

"Hey Tommy!" the dark brown haired boy from the park called out, moving towards him. Tommy wasn't sure what he thought about the kids he had met at the park. Sure Lori, her older brother, he couldn't remember his name, and his friends had seemed nice, but the other two, perhaps her older sister and her friend had been extremely rude. Like at the park it was obvious that he was wearing brand name sports clothes.

"Hey," he said uncertainly, he still didn't know if he just wanted to be friends because he felt sorry for him or what.

The other boy seemed to sense his hesitance, "I'm Jason Scott, look I want to apologize for what happened at the park. Every once in a while Kimberly and Billy go a little crabby, but it never last long. When you get to know them better you'll understand what I'm talking about."

Tommy snorted, "Look, I know when people don't like me, you don't have to make excuses for them."

Jason shook his head, he didn't know what was going on with his two younger siblings, but it looked like it ruined what could have been a wonderful friendship.

No sooner had Tommy left did Kim and Billy arrived, dressed as punks of all things, Jason frowned, how in the world had they got past Pip dressed like that. Pip wasn't that strict about their clothes, but he did pay attention to the type and style of clothing that they each like to wear. He would have notice the two of them wearing the out of character outfits.

He watched in alarm when they gained up on a small seventh grader, demanding lunch money. Great, this wasn't going to end well. Next thing he knew was Mr. Caplan, the principal, walked down the hall just as Billy was intimidating Bulk while Kim was flirting with Skull. Now that was a sight he didn't want to see. His little sister flirting with that guy, they were only eighth graders and he already had a reputation with girls that Jason didn't want to learn if it was true or not, especially with Kim.

Mr. Caplan looked unimpressed, "You," he called pointing to Billy, "and you," he pointed to Kim, "My office now!"

Jason frowned, Kim wasn't actually doing anything wrong, just flirting with a guy that she usually wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, but Mr. Caplan had a guilty until proven innocent attitude. all five of them had been at the receiving end of that. Usually it was followed by profound apologies once they proved themselves innocent. Sometimes though they just grin and bear it.

* * *

Lori followed Alpha Five through the dense jungle, "Why couldn't I fight the monster with Jason, Zack, and Trini?" she complained, "Pip always treats me like a little kid, for crying out loud I'm almost twelve."

"Ay Yi Yi," Alpha exclaimed, "Lori, your father is just trying to protect you, fighting monsters are dangerous." He bent over to pull up the singing squash, only for the two of them to be attacked by putties.

Lori quickly dropped into a fighting position, Pip needed the singing squash it was the only way to break the spell on Kimberly and Billy and they needed Kim and Billy to help defeat the Terror Toad. Their dad had told the others about a weak spot on the monster's neck that Lori was certain that only Kim's bow could hit.

As soon as they could they gave the potion to Kim and Billy.

"About time you gave us something to drink," Kim said.

"Yeah," Billy exclaimed, "Your service stinks."

With that they emptied the glasses, and were shocked at what they found. "I don't even like gum," Kim muttered, as she pulled out the piece she was chewing and wrapped it in the wrapper she found in her pocket. As she did that though, she got a good view of the viewing globe, which was showing the monster battle which the other rangers were losing, or to be more precise which Jason was fighting alone because Trini and Zack had been swallowed by the creep.

"Kimberly, Billy, Lorelei, your brother needs you."

"It's morphin' Time!" Kim shouted.

"Pteradactyl!"

"Triceratop!"

" Elasmosaurus!"

* * *

Kim watched in satisfaction as the Terror Toad exploded in front of her with a bunch of light shooting out from him. Those lights quickly turned into her siblings. She had saved them. The battle had been hard, by the time she got there they had already been down two rangers, and Jason had been "Captured" soon after that, at least he managed to take out the horn first. After Jason Billy tried to hit the weak spot but he too had been captured. That of course had been when Baboo had shown up, shoving her away and causing her to lose her aim. Lori jumped forward and kindly reminded him why he was not a warrior like Goldar while Kim finished the job.

Jason stood up and looked around before nodding, "Coast is clear," he announced before everyone demorphed.

* * *

Tommy was sitting on a bench at the playground, watching the younger children from his foster home play, they were lucky, they were so young that they all probably will be adopted if they couldn't get put back in their parents' home.

"Mind if I sit with you?" a soft female voice asked, causing him to look up, it was the girl that had made fun of him the other day.

"Why? So you can make fun of me again?" Tommy almost winced at how harsh he sounded, almost but not quite.

The girl blushed, "I wanted to apologize to you," she admitted, "I wasn't myself yesterday, or this morning."

"Why should I believe you?" Tommy snapped, "People don't act that way and not mean it."

"I wish I could tell you but I can't."

"Well then," Tommy said, standing up, "I wish I could trust you but I can't." With that he walked away.


	9. Chapter 9

Zordon was in a meeting up at his mountain resort trying to convince some big oil company that no meant no and he was not selling his private island to them so they could drill for oil. It was a fun summer home for him and his children and even when they weren't there he was able to book it solid through the summer months.

Just then the door to the conference room slammed open as Kimberly stormed into the room, "You ruined my life," she announced though it was in Eltarian so no one else could understand her.

"How so?" Zordon asked politely, standing up from the table to take a good look at his oldest daughter, she was upset, he could tell that from the way her usually soft doe colored eyes were flashing in a matter that for her was dangerous.

"You made me a power ranger, and I'm already a freak of nature, and now the cutest boy in my grade won't talk to me because you nad your sister don't know how to get along!"

Zordon rubbed a hand across his forehead, he knew something like this would come up eventually, and not for the first time he wished his wife Uma was still alive, but if Uma was still alive he wouldn't be having this conversation because he probably never would have moved to Earth in the first place, "Surely it isn't that bad," he exclaimed.

"Yes it is," Kim insisted, "He says he can't trust me because I was rude to him, and I was only rude to him because Rita had her minions slip a potion in my lemonade."

The big oil company owner watched in interest as Mr. Ranger and this teenage girl had a conversation in some sort of foreign language, it was obvious that the girl was upset and Mr. Ranger was trying to pacify her.

Soon the girl let out a huff and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Zordon turned to the others in the room, "I'm sorry about that interruption, she's my daughter, and well, she's a teenage girl."

"I see," the oil company owner said, "What were you talking about, I don't seem to recognize that language."

Zordon took a deep breath, this guy would try anything took get drilling rights over by his island, "If I wanted our conversation to be common knowledge I would have switched the conversation to English, as it were, we spook in my native tongue to respect my daughter's privacy. And I would appreciate if you do the same," he gave everyone in the room a hard look, "I said no, that is my final offer, and you keep pestering me, I'm going to start treating you like my son when he won't listen to me."

* * *

Kim jumped up on the counter of Billy's outside lab, originally it had been an old garage for the lawnmower and other tools, but Billy had taken it completely over, "It was horrible Billy, Pip didn't listen to a word I said."

Billy nodded as he continue to mess with the computer in front of him, "Maybe he was in the middle of a important transaction of some sort?"

"So what he was in a meeting, this is serious Billy, I have never meet someone who did not want to be my friend before."

"Perhaps this will be a good learning experience."

"Billy!" Kim snapped, "are you even listening?"

"Affirmative," Billy replied as he hit the enter key, "I'm just doing some last minute debugging of my latest project."

That got Kim's attention, Billy always had amazing ideas, like the cake o matic that didn't quite work out the way he wanted, "What kind of project."

"You see I've been working on a new system that inseminates a direct thought transfer."

Kim thought about it for a second, she had no idea what inseminates meant but she understood the word transfer, "You have a way for me to read your mind?"

"Affirmative," Billy said, getting up to show her a device that looked like one of those cutout things where you stick your head through, only it wasw the whole body that was missing and there were wires around the heads.

Kim nervously stepped into the one cut out, Billy had once singed his own hair by accident during his own experiements and she did not want to have to experience that herself.

Billy stepped into the cutout next to her and flipped the switch, the next thing that Kim knew she was flipping the switch back off. Her sight was funny it was wavy and fuzzy, and the oddest part was she was sure that she was looking at herself.

"Are you feeling nominal?" that sounded like her voice but she wasn't talking.

"Like I think so?" Kim admitted, taking off a foreign object from her face, glasses? why was she wearing glasses?

She looked up and saw herself standing in front of her, It suddenly clicked on what happened, "Billy?"

The other person, trapped in Kimberly's body, grabbed the glasses and put them on, before staring at her in shock, "Kimberly?"

"Like what just happened," Kimberly demanded.

"The generator experience a demathertmic overload," Billy explained.

"What!" Kim demanded.

"We've undergone spacial personality displacement."

Kim groaned why did Illy have to use big words, Trini wasn't around to translate, "Can you just speak English."

Billy sighed, layman terms it was, "Your brain is in my body and my brain is in your body."

* * *

Mike the big oil company owner was thinking. He did not like being told no, and he was going to get his way one way or another, even if it meant kidnapping brats, he had done it before, and it had always worked like a charm, but Zordon Ranger was a lot richer and had more conections than anyone he blackmailed before.


	10. Chapter 10

_Previously:_

 _"Like what just happened," Kimberly demanded._

 _"The generator experience a demathertmic overload," Billy explained._

 _"What!" Kim demanded._

 _"We've undergone spacial personality displacement."_

 _Kim groaned why did BIlly have to use big words, Trini wasn't around to translate, "Can you just speak English."_

 _Billy sighed, layman terms it was, "Your brain is in my body and my brain is in your body."_

* * *

Chapter Ten:

Kim flopped down on one of the stools in the lab, "What do you mean we switched bodies! Switch us back!"

"I can't," Billy insisted, typing away at his keyboard, "I need to figure out what went wrong and make repairs to the machine, it's going to take me at least a couple of hours."

Just then Lori showed up, "There you guys are, hurry up, we're going to miss the bus, Summer break doesn't start until next week, remember?" she stopped, giving her siblings a good look over, "Did you know..."

"Yes," Kim snapped, in Billy's body, "We know that Billy and I swapped bodies."

"I was going to ask if you knew that your clothes where smoking, but looks like you have bigger fish to fry than burning clothes. I'll go get Pip!" the Eleven year old turned around to leave.

"No," Billy cried out, "I can fix this myself, I don't need Pip's magic."

"But School," Lori pointed out, "You can't bake a cake to save your life and Kim doesn't know anything about computers plus there is the mermaid factor."

"We've been able to hide the fact we are mermaids for years now," Billy pointed out resting Kim's hand on the table. He pulled it back suddenly staring in disbelief as the whole table and everything on it, including his computer turned into a solid piece of ice, "When we traded Bodies we traded powers as well."

Lori rolled her eyes, "Exactly and unless you want to risk Kim blowing up the school I think we need to tell Pip!"

...

Billy checked himself in the mirror in Kim's locker, so trying to do makeup was a bad idea, how did Trini and Kimberly make it look so simple? Maybe there was a reason for Lori always going to them for help when she wants to wear make up. He sighed tossing the lip stick back into the locker, and accidentally froze the contents of it.

He slammed the door shut and keeping his head down he rushed to what he hoped was Kim's first period class, They only had Ms Appleby's class together and this far into the school year Kim no longer had her schedule having had memorized it months ago.

He was so busy trying to remember who Kim said her teacher was, what subject, and what room that he was taken quite by surprise when he ran into somebody, "Oops. sorry," he offered, hoping that he sounded enough like Kim for them not to question it.

"Yeah, I'm sure you are," the person said, he didn't sound cold or mean, but he didn't sound like he believed him anyways. This must be Tommy the boy Kim was obsessed about. He ducked around and hurried away.

Tommy shook his head before walking away, he was never going to understand that girl, and he wondered what was up with her makeup, had she been attacked by some kind of clown monster. He had only lived here for a little while but he understood that monsters came in all size and varieties.

...

Jason watched as Kim and Billy approached, both bickering bitterly with each other. Billy was going on and on about something about Kim's make up and making him look bad, while Kim went on and on about trusting Billy with something simple and it not working out, "Trini, what is Kim saying?" he finally asked.

Trini, who like Jason had been listening into this argument but had not yet intervened, scrunched up her forehead, "She's saying that Billy was suppose to help fix the computer, not blow it up."

"How was I suppose to know that I could blow up computers."

Billy stormed over and flopped down on the bench throwing his hands up in the air. Across the hall from them a jet of water shot up from the drinking fountain.

"Kim!" Kim snapped, "Watch it, you're going to get us wet!"

The spray of water stopped but Zack had caught on to what was being said, "If Billy is Kim, then Kim is..."

"Someone who can't put on makeup, obviously," Billy, or um, Kim in Billy's body that is stated.

Jason looked around, the last thing they needed was someone outside of their family to see the drinking fountain incident, however he didn't notice Tommy who had ducked around the corner when he saw the drinking fountain explode.

Tommy mind was whirling, he could only understand a few words, they appeared to be speaking in a foreign language but he could guess that the water incident was the one boy's fault and he and Kim had somehow swapped bodies, which, with everything else he heard about this town could be true, or they gave him the wrong names, which was also possible, it happened before.

For a second he felt sorry for Kimberly, but he quickly pushed it away, she was, after all the spoiled rich brat of a super rich father.

...

Kim stepped away from the machine, pulling Billy's glasses off of her face, "Guys I think it worked," she shouted, "I'm me again!"

Billy let out a sigh of relief, he was glad that was over, they had had to fight a monster in each other body and that had gotten confusing. Jason kept forgetting about the body swap and kept giving him orders meant for Kim and Kim orders meant for him. After that happened a couple of times Jason just started calling out their names whenever he needed one of their help.

Everyone was so relieved to have their brother and sister back together none of them noticed the dark shadowy figure slip away, soon, he thought, soon one of those brats would be alone and then he would strike.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Kim looked up from her notebook that was spread out on the picnic table in front of her, even with finals just around the corner today had been to nice of a day to be kept cooped up, and Lori was far to energetic to stay around the house so they had all packed up their notes and headed to the park to study and still keep an eye on their little sister like they had promised they would.

She blinked, Lori was no longer on the play structure in front of them, "Guy's where's Lori?" she asked jumping up. She could come up with a hundred different possibilities as to what went wrong, Rita and her goons, someone wanting to make a quick buck by ransoming her, a water gun fight that she got caught in. There was also the possibility that a monster had grabbed her.

"I'm sure she hasn't wandered off to far," Billy said softly.

"Still we better find out where she went, just in case," Jason announced, slipping into leader mode, like he always did when there was even a remote chance that one of his younger siblings could possibly be in trouble. There was a reason that their father had named him leader.

* * *

Lori had been playing on the play structure before she had gotten distracted by a group of her friends showing up. She could still see her older siblings from the soccer field, so she hadn't bothered telling them where she was going. Some of her classmates call her a baby because she had to let someone know where she was at all times.

She had just claimed possession of the ball when she heard her name being called out in a panic, her siblings had realized that she had wandered off.

"Man what a baby," a girl from her class hissed in her ear, kicking at the ball under Lori's foot, "Can't even play a simple game of soccer without having to get checked in on."

Lori stumbled, catching herself and regaining possession of the ball, "You're just jealous because your big sister doesn't want anything to do with you," Lori exclaimed.

The next thing Lori knew she was on the ground with a sharp pain in her knee, the pain only added to her anger, "You pushed me, that's a foul!" she shouted as she lifted her hands up to inspect them. she winched, she had hit the ground hard and had scuffed up the heels of her hands, there were also a couple of grass slivers embedded in her hand as well.

"It's my word against yours, so who is everybody going to believe, me, or some foster child."

Lori shot her classmate a glare as she stood up to inspect her knees. her left knee seemed okay, although she wondered if Mrs. Hathaway could do anything to remove the large grass stain on her white capris. A look at her other knee, which stung a lot told her that it was pointless to try to salvage her pants, there was a large ragged hole in the knee which was scraped up and bleeding from falling on a sharp rock that was hidden in the grass. By this point she was fighting hard to keep her tears under control, she was to old to cry.

* * *

Kim hadn't been looking long before she ran straight into someone, mainly Tommy Oliver.

Tommy laughed, "I guess I'm not the only one to decide that today was to nice of a day to stay cooped up for," he said before remembering that he didn't like Kimberly.

She, however, didn't seem to notice the awkwardness Tommy was feeling because of that, for she immediately demanded, "Have you seen Lori my younger sister, red hair, yeah high," with that she held up her hand to explain, "Eleven years old?"

Tommy shook his head, "No, but I saw a bunch of kids playing soccer."

"Thanks," Kim called over her shoulders as she raced off towards the soccer fields. Tommy blinked in surprise, Kim had actually seemed genuinely concerned for the well being of her sister. Maybe she wasn't as bad as he thought.

With that in mind he followed Kim to the soccer field.

* * *

Lori was a little confused as to why Tommy Oliver was carrying her, he didn't like Kim, who had been the one who had shown up after she had fallen, and she was quite capable of walking on her own, but he insisted on carrying her across the street to the youth center to get patched up. Yes for most people the youth center was the closest first aide kit to the park. Ernie had a large one in case kids got banged up and didn't have a first aide kit on them, but for her and Kim, the Command center would have been easier. All she would have done was hobble over to the bushes and teleport in.

"There," Tommy said, smoothing the band aide that he had just put on her knee, "Good as new."

"Thanks Tommy," Kim said, "But you do know that I am more than capable of taking care of her by myself."

"I can take care of myself," Lori muttered shooting her sister a dirty look.

"What happened anyway?" Tommy asked, he had been the one who had found Lori while on a jog through the park he saw a large fist fight on the soccer field.

"Sammy pushed me, and called me a liar." with that Lori told them what happened, unaware of the men in the shadows waiting to strike.

One of the men looked at the other, the leader, and raised an eyebrow should they nab them now.

The leader shook his head, not yet, wait until they leave.

In front of them their prize stood up and announced to her companions, "It's getting late, I think we better call a cab and get home, I have enough cash for it, Tommy you want a ride?"

The leader nodded, now was the perfect time to act, it was a good thing that they had a cab waiting for just this opportunity.


	12. Chapter 12

In front of them their prize stood up and announced to her companions, "It's getting late, I think we better call a cab and get home, I have enough cash for it, Tommy you want a ride?"

The leader nodded, now was the perfect time to act, it was a good thing that they had a cab waiting for just this opportunity.

Chapter 12:

"This is bad," Lori exclaimed, slipping into Eltarian in her panic. They had called a cab to take them home in the growing dusk, but Lori had a feeling that something was not right, deep in her guts, and as a mermaid she had to trust her feelings, mermaids had good instincts.

"What do you mean?" Kim muttered back in the same language.

"The look the driver gave us when we climbed in, it was..." she trailed off, how did she explain the look, "It was a creepy look, like he knew something we didn't, something involving us."

"You sure?" Kim asked, it was a stupid question, Lori wouldn't have mention it if she wasn't sure of her suspicions, and Lori was never wrong, after all she was the one who figured out how to become a power ranger and who was the power rangers. She never missed a trick.

Lori nodded, "Look at him out of the corner at your eye, he's watching us when we aren't looking."

Kim did as her younger sister suggested, the man was studying them, just as Lori had told them, perhaps calculating his next move, as she did this she noticed that Tommy was getting nervous, _Because he can't understand us and probably doesn't think anything is wrong. Probably thinks we are talking about him. As if we would be that rude._

Kim leaned over to Tommy, "Lori senses something is wrong. I don't want to alarm you, but, she is always correct about this kind of things."

"Like what kind of things?" Tommy asked, concerned, what had he gotten himself into.

"Kidnapping, but I could be wrong?" Lori whispered.

"What's the likely hood that she's wrong?"

"She's just trying to make you feel better, she knows if any of us are in trouble before we knew we were in trouble."

Kim frowned, she didn't dare use her communicator with Tommy in the car, but she didn't want to pull out her cell phone and alert the driver that she was suspicious of him.

Lori was looking out the window, the guy was driving in the opposite direction of what he was suppose to, in fact she could see a bridge up ahead, and a river down below, she grinned, she had a plan, "How good are you at swimming?" she asked aloud.

She didn't have time for an answer, she quickly unbuckled, threw open the door and rolled out of the moving car under the railing and into the river below. She resurfaced in alarm when she didn't here echoing splashes. The force of the car moving forward had caused the door to close and the driver to lock the doors, by the time Kim and Tommy had gotten the door open again the bridge had passed and so had their opportunity to escape.

* * *

"That was insane," Tommy shouted, "she could have been killed!"

"She's the one who dove out of the car," the driver said, uncaringly, so one brat got away he still had another.

"She's fine," Kim announced, "She's part fish," literally she thought to herself.

"Shut up!" the driver snapped back at them as he pulled over at an old abandoned house where several others were waiting for them.

Kim fell silent as she was lead into the house, but that was mainly because she was thinking, she was under strict orders not to reveal her secret identity, but she wasn't under strict orders not to reveal her uniqueness, but she still didn't want to reveal to much at once, since in case.

"Let Tommy go, it's me you want isn't it," Kim's voice was confident, "You don't agree with my father so you decided to kidnap me to get your way, well, it isn't going to work."

The driver laughed, "You have got to be kidding me, what can a couple of kids like you do."

"I don't know about Tommy here, but I can cause a whole lot of trouble." With that she flipped over the guy trying to tie her up knocking him down as she did.

Tommy took this as an opportunity to reveal the fact that he was a black belt in Karate. Soon he and Kim had fought their way outside. The girl could fight that was impressive he thought he had to rescue her from the situation.

"Can I trust you?" Kim shouted as they started to run to the river, he couldn't leave Lori injured and alone, if what Kim said about her being alive was true.

"I just helped you escape didn't I?" he demanded, looking over his shoulders, they were being chased.

"Then let me help you get away," Kim shouted, "But if anyone hears about this, you won't want to know what would happen." With that she raised her hand in a classic stop signal, thrusting it forward as if pushing something extremely heavy forward. The pursuers started to slip and slide on a patch of ice.

"How?" Tommy asked, they weren't high enough in the mountains for snow and ice and it was summer not winter.

"explain later, move now," Kim gasped out, not wanting to waste her breath on an explanation.

* * *

Lori had hidden herself underneath the bridge, She knew that Kim could easily free herself and judging by the way he was built and carried himself so could Tommy which meant that they would probably double back for her.

Soon enough she heard the hiss of her sister calling for her, the splash of people entering the river and the tingle of another mermaid being close by. Had Kim revealed their secret to Tommy or had they split up? If she had revealed it, how would he react to the two half fish girls?

"Let me get this straight," Tommy's voice rang towards her from the bank, "When you said that your sister was part fish you meant that she was a mermaid?"


	13. Chapter 13

"Let me get this straight," Tommy's voice rang towards her from the bank, "When you said that your sister was part fish you meant that she was a mermaid?"

Kim nodded, diving into the fast moving current, "Yep, come on, she probably is waiting for me just up river some, under the bridge I bet."

"You're a mermaid too?" Tommy asked, no way, he kept thinking, mermaids aren't real. Then again, two months ago he would have said monsters and aliens and castles on the moon weren't real too, and look at him now.

"Come on Tommy, we have to move, Lori and I have to get inside before the full moon rises. If we see the full moon, especially if we are in the water when we do, we will go into a trance and won't wake up until the moon sets. When we are in a moon trance, we have no control over our bodies, we might hurt you or something."

Tommy frowned, mermaids moon trances, what madness had he got involved with?

He struggled to keep up with Kim, he had to hold her hand just to make sure the current didn't sweep him away. He considered himself a strong swimmer, but if he didn't hold on to Kim, who didn't even seem to notice the current pulling against them.

Soon, as his lungs begged for air, they broke surface, emerging underneath the same bridge that Lori had jumped from earlier. Lori was there, her head bobbing up in down in the water, dressed, like Kim in a gold swimsuit top and gold tail, "Okay, the moon rises in half an hour, we need to be inside when it does, or lights out."

Tommy had to do something, after all Kim had helped him to escape, "What can I do to help?"

"Get back to town and tell our father what is going on, tell him we went up Brenda Creek, he can meet us there," Kim said.

"Brenda Creek is miles away, you'll never make it," Tommy protested, "Surely there is somewhere else you can go, closer."

Lori shook her head, red hair clinging to her face as she did, "There is no time to argue, they're already headed this way, we can hold them off Tommy, but you need to go."

"No," Tommy found himself saying, "If those goons see you in mermaid form then things are going to get a lot worst."

"For them maybe," Lori muttered as she rose her hand up over the water. The water bubbled and churned rising up into the air in thick chunks, forming the shape of a trident. The eleven year old girl wrapped her hand around the staff of the water weapon there was a loud splash as the water cascaded down revealing a gold green trident which the young girl welded with obvious ease and practice, "Get to close and they'll get crispy."

"Lorelei!" Kim gasped, horrified by the joy she seemed to get from that statement. Lori loved using her power weapon, and she was the only one of the power rangers who could summon their weapon outside of their ranger form. It drove Kim and the others crazy sometimes.

"I'm kidding," Lorelei stated, "I know I can't use my trident on them unless things get a whole lot worst, like if one of them turns out to be Ursula or Rita or something like that. Then I get to cook them like bacon!"

Tommy looked over at Kim, who looked as bewildered as he felt, Lori always past as a sweet little girl but apparently he was wrong.

Kim shook her head, "Not now Lori, remember what Pip says? 'Never fight as an enemy what can be resolved as friends.'"

Lori let out a disappointed sigh, letting go of the trident, the whole thing turned into water and then splashed into the river, "If you don't want to leave, then you better hold on tight and take a big breath now."

Tommy followed the younger girl's instructions, getting in a big gulp of air before he was submerged in the water, moving faster than he thought a living being could move without the aide of a motorized vehicle, mainly something built for racing.

...

Tommy broke the surface gulping in air before looking around, he was in some sort of cave filled with water. At the edge of the water Kim and Lori were pulling themselves out of the water, none the worst for wear for having swam at 120 mph for five full minutes, not once stopping for air. Large globs of water came off them and crashed into the water next to him. He blinked, both of them were wearing what they had been wearing before they dove in, completely dry, down to the bandage on Lorelei's scrapped knee.

"How?" he asked, confused, bur then he decided he didn't want to know, magic, before he moved to Angel Grove he didn't believe it existed, now though he didn't seem to be able to turn left without running into a monster, or mermaid, or some form of magic.

"No time to explain," Kim said, "Just trust us, we only have a short period before the moon rises, and we need to get to the cabin before that." She scrambled out of the hole in the roof before helping Lori up.

"Won't it be safer for us to stay here?" Lori asked.

"Not for Tommy, you know that the mermaid pool is dangerous on the full moon for humans."

Tommy got nervous, "What do you mean, dangerous?" he had to know just what he had gotten himself into.

Kim stopped and looked down on him, he had finally pulled himself up onto the ledge, "Once the full moon is directly above it will activate the pool turning anyone in the pool into mermaids. So unless you want to have to be wary of every drop of water you see for the rest of your lives, I suggest that we leave."

"And what if I want to become a mermaid?" Tommy asked, he groaned, he really needed to think before he talked, did he really wanted to be a mermaid? Well being a mermaid would mean that he could explore a world that few people have explored, and Kim would know that he can be trusted, if he shared in her secret then there was no reason for him to tell the secret.

"Are you nuts?" Lori demanded.


	14. Chapter 14

Tommy couldn't help feel like he was some sort of outsider participating in some sort of ritual, it was obvious that Kimberly and her younger sister had done this before. Though it was kind of creepy to know that this was not the first time that the two girls had been kidnapped.

He looked around the great room, "So," he asked, "You come here often?"

Lori nodded, "Yep," she said yawning. They had ended up spending the night at the Moon Cove and therefore had not gotten any sleep. With that in mind, they had decided to stop at the cabin to rest before making the trek home.

It didn't take long for Lori and Kim to collapse on a bunk bed and fall asleep. Tommy, however, just tossed and turned uncomfortably, he always had a hard time sleeping in a strange place. Which seemed odd seeing how often he was moved to a new home.

What will happen when he gets back. He was definitely in trouble, he'll be place in a group home for sure. Great, and it was liking like he was finally making friends.

* * *

Zordon frowned, Kimberly and Lorelei still hadn't return home, last night had been a full moon, so he wasn't to concerned. If they had been caught by the moon, they would have headed to the cove, or maybe Mermaid Lagoon. They could take care of themselves. Especially Lori.

Just then there was a knock on the front door, "Mrs. Calloway, can you get the door. I'm trying to get a hold of Kimberly and Lorelei."

The housekeeper nodded, having long ago accepted that Zordon didn't seem to care if the kids randomly stayed out all night. They always came home the next day good as new.

A social worker was standing there, "I'm looking for Tommy Oliver, according to eye witnesses he was last seen leaving the youth center last night with Kimberly Hart and Lorelei Chatham. Have you seen him?"

"No I haven't, I was off last night and don't know what went on here, but I can tell you that Kim and Lori did not come home last night."

The social worker frowned, "And the police never were notified."

"There is little reason to call the police, they went up to our cabin to spend the night, perfectly acceptable." Zordon announced walking up behind his housekeeper.

"And Tommy Oliver?"

"I don't know, I'm heading up to pick them up, I'll question them about him."

* * *

Tommy groaned as he listened to his social worker go on and on about how irresponsible he was, running off the way he did. If he had indeed been kidnapped then they should have called the police, seeing as Kimberly had a cell phone on her, not run off and spend the night in a random cabin, though he did manage to point out that it was not a random cabin it belong to Kim and Lori's family. Keep this up and he would be put in a foster home for sure.

He kept his eyes on his drink in front of him, curling his hand into a fist. It was a good thing that he was watching his drink, or else he wouldn't have believed it when it started to boil over, the ice already melted. He reached out his hand and tentatively touched the glass. It was hot, like a stove top that was on. Had he did that? He knew that Lori and Kim had special powers and so did Billy. Lori could condense water vapor into water or turn water into vapor. Billy could control water molecules, and Kim could freeze stuff. Could he know heat stuff up? that was pretty awesome if he could.

"Are you listening to a word I'm saying Thomas," his social worker asked.

Tommy jumped, he had been so caught up with the discovery of his special water power that he had forgotten all about the conversation that he was being forced to endure, "No not really," he confessed.

However, before the social worker could say anything else, Jason appeared, "Tommy, Kim told me that you know karate, you want to spar?"

Tommy jumped up, forgetting once again about the lecture he was suppose to be listening to, "Yeah, let my grab my gi."

The social worker laughed, letting this slide, maybe this was what Tommy needed some good friends. It was great seeing him making friends. He had been moved around so much that it was hard for him to make new friends without the fear that he would have to say good bye at any time, or might not even get a chance to say good bye.

Maybe this staying out all night without permission could be over looked.

* * *

Rita watched the spar with interest, the new guy was holding his own, sure Jason was holding back, but so was Tommy, this was interesting, and he had water powers just like that Brat of a girl, the Aquamarine ranger, "He'll make a perfect green ranger!" she exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" Baboo asked, "Remember what happened when we captured Lorelei?"

"Don't start thinking you buffoon, just capture that boy!"

Baboo and Squat looked at each other, they were there only to obey their mistress's every order, but surely this wasn't a good idea. They had already learned the hard way that mermaids and the moon did not mix and they didn't not want a repeat.

"Don't just stand there your nitwits get him!" Rita screeched.

* * *

Tommy was walking home after the spar with a light spring to his step, he had forgotten how much he enjoyed having friends and he was glad he had made such good ones.

Suddenly he was surrounded by putties. he dropped his bag and started to fight. Despite being outnumbered he was able to hold his own quite easily, The next thing he knew everything went black.


	15. Chapter 15

Tommy was walking home after the spar with a light spring to his step, he had forgotten how much he enjoyed having friends and he was glad he had made such good ones.

Suddenly he was surrounded by putties. he dropped his bag and started to fight. Despite being outnumbered he was able to hold his own quite easily, The next thing he knew everything went black.

...

Alpha was minding his own business when someone grabbed him from behind and slipped something in his processor, a virus, "Zordon! Zordon! Intruder alert!" he called out before he was powered down, forcefully.

Zordon heard the cry and ran into the room, "Who are you? How did you get in here without detection?" He blinked as he saw who was in the room, "So my sister finally found someone to give the green power too. Alpha! contact the kids!"

"Give it up old man!" Tommy snarled, "You are no match for my Empress!"

Zordon was never a fighter, brain before brawn had always been his motto, therefore it was no surprise to him when he suddenly found himself outmatched, the mysterious green ranger destroying the lab as he did.

...

"Has any one seen Tommy since the youth center, his foster mom just called," Lori called out walking up to where her older siblings were gathered around the old car that Billy was fixing up, he was still too young to drive, but he wanted it to be in working condition when he did get his license.

"No," Kim stated, "Why what's up?"

"His foster mom just called," the red head explained, "Wanted to know if Tommy was still with us, he never showed up for dinner."

"What did you tell her?" Jason demanded.

"The truth," Lori stated, rolling her blue-green eyes, honestly what did her brother think she was, a liar, "That after the youth center we all went home."

"But Tommy didn't go home?" Zack asked, leaning against the bug car.

"Apparently not, and so many things could have gone wrong," Lori pointed out, "sprinkler systems turning on, it's the last week of school so there is an abundance of water guns at the Elementary school, and that isn't even putting into account the Ranger Factor, he could have been attacked by a monster."

"Don't be silly," Trini insisted, "Pip would have told us of any monster attacks."

As if mentioning monsters caused it to happen, their communicators went off.

"R...r...rangers, m...may...mayday, m...may...mayday," Alpha's voice filtered through the watches, breaking up horribly.

"Alpha," Jason called through his, "You're breaking up, I can't understand what you are saying."

"Our communicators appear to be nonfunctioning." Billy announced after fiddling with his for a couple of seconds.

"We need to get to the Command Center and fast," Kim stated.

"Everyone into the RadBug," Billy ordered, motioning to the car.

"How is that going to get us to the Command Center?" Jason asked as the others piled into the backseat.

"You'll see," Billy said with a grin as he grabbed a set of keys from his lab.

"I feel like it is my duty to tell everyone that I have a bad feeling about this," Lori announced as Billy climbed in and turned the engine on, "So when we crash or get pulled over, I can say that I tried to talk you out of it."

A minute later they were in the sky.

"Okay so we can't get pulled over, good to know." Lori stated, "But I still have a bad feeling about this."

"Can this thing go any faster?" Zack demanded.

"Hold on everybody."

"I was afraid you were going to say that," Lori shouted as Billy floored the gas.

Five minutes later they landed, in one piece, in the Command Center.

"See Lori, nothing to worry about," Billy said, looking at his youngest sister in the back seat.

Lori, however, was looking past Billy, out the windshield at what was left of the Command Center, "No Billy, I think I have every right to worry, look!"

Control Panels had been ripped open, wires pulled free, the smell of burnt plastic filled the air, and in the center of the room, with a clearly worried Alpha hovering over him, laid their father.

"Pip!" Kim cried out, racing over to her father and examined the large gash on his forehead, "We need to get him help, now!"

"How?" Jason snapped, "We shouldn't move him, teleportation is down, and we can't call an ambulance up here!"

"Alpha where's the medical bay area, there has to be a medical bay area, right?" Lori asked.

"R...Ra...Rangers, M...Ma...Mayday," Alpha said over and over again, not answering the Aqua Ranger.

"Looks like someone fed Alpha a virus into his Data base," Billy murmured, checking the back of the little robot, sure enough, a disk had been slipped in. He carefully pulled it out and Alpha stood up straight.

"Rangers you're here!" he cried out in joy.

"What happened Alpha?" Jason demanded.

"My memory bank is all scrambled, I have no recollection of recent events," with that he saw Zordon laying prone on the floor, "What happened to Zordon?" he cried out in alarm.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Trini confessed.

"Quick," Alpha shouted, pointing down a hallway none of the teens had noticed was even there, "The medical bay is this way."

"Guys," Kim called out, looking at the viewing globe, which was remarkably still functioning, Goldar was terrorizing down town.

"We have bigger fish to fry!" Lori called out.

"No!" Jason called out, "Billy you stay here and help Alpha get the teleportation up and going, once it is get Pip somewhere safe, whoever broke into here somehow got past the security system, and until we find out how they did, the Command Center isn't safe so Lori, you go home and stay put. The rest of us will deal with Goldar.


	16. Chapter 16

"No!" Jason called out, "Billy you stay here and help Alpha get the teleportation up and going, once it is get Pip somewhere safe, whoever broke into here somehow got past the security system, and until we find out how they did, the Command Center isn't safe so Lori, you go home and stay put. The rest of us will deal with Goldar.

"But, grr..." Lori exclaimed, clutching her hands into fists, "I want to help, I'm not a little baby."

"Lorelei," Jason barked, "Go now!"

"I can't," Lori said sweetly, "Communications are down, and Billy is needed here, so, like it or not your short a ranger and I'm your best bet when it comes to fighting putties."

"Fine, Jason sighed, Lori would just argue with him if he kept trying to protect her, he needed to remember that Lori wasn't the little four year old that  
Pip brought home eight years ago.

* * *

Jason looked around the remains of the Command Center, this couldn't be happening, an evil ranger? Lori and Kim were kneeling in front of the medical cot that their father was laying on. They needed to get him to safety, but they couldn't do that until Billy and Trini got the Teleportation up and running again, and that couldn't happen until they got Alpha up and running again. And even Billy admitted that that was a hard task to complete.

"We will figure things out," Zack said, throwing an arm around his older brother's shoulders, "You'll see, we always do."

Lori looked up from her place by Pip, "I'll stay here and keep Pip safe and help Alpha."

"What!" Jason exclaimed, "Lori you can't do that!"

"From the way I see things, I'm the only one who can do that," Lori explained, "It's the last week of school, which means you guys all have finals, but I'm done with lessons, It's just fun and games for me."

"But," Jason protested, "Lori!"

"I'll be fine honest," Lori insisted, "If that green ranger villain shows up," she pounded her fist into her hand, "He'll have a big surprise waiting."

Jason sighed, "Okay fine, don't do anything stupid."

"I'm not Zack."

"What is that suppose to mean?" Zack demanded.

"Nothing," his siblings said, a little to quickly.

"What is that suppose to mean?" Zack demanded again, but his siblings pretended not to hear him.

...

It was well past midnight when Jason and the others finally packed up and headed home.

"But what about Pip?" Kim asked.

Jason looked over at the prone figure of their father, "We shouldn't move him, besides the RADBUG can't fit all of us as it is, Lori has to sit on a lap."

Lori sighed, once again she was the extra ranger, "So tomorrow you'll drop me off here before you head to school," she asked.

"Only because it is the best solution at the moment," Trini spoke up, "Billy and I will try to finish up our finals early and then head over here to help."

"We can't leave Lori here alone if we can help it," Jason insisted.

"There you go again," Lori shouted, "Stop treating me like a little kid playing superhero. I'm almost twelve for crying out loud! I get it, the only reason I', even on the team is because I stumble across the family secret and figured out how it works. I get it, i'm just on the team because I'm your little sister and it is All in the family, but it would be nice if you don't treat me like a little kid all the time."

Kim placed a hand on Jason's shoulder, "She's been holding that in for a while now."

Jason nodded, "So why release it now, when we have to trust her?"

"Because," Kim said softly, "She's worried about Pip and this new threat." Kim fell silent for a second before adding, "And she has a point, Jason, so far all the power rangers are related, so what if this new threat is a family member, an aunt or uncle, it could be Rita."

"Oh, it could be the ghost of one of Pip's other children out to seek revenge on the father that abandoned them."

"That's not funny Zack!"Jason snapped, glaring at his brother, it was way to late to deal with his antics.

"I think we are over looking a key factor in this," Billy insisted, "While we call ourselves family our genetic make up would suggest otherwise."

"Billy's right, we might be a family now, but when we were six we were just a group of strangers living under the same roof."

"So it isn't some relative?" Lori asked.

Trini shook her head, "There is a small possibility that it is, but most likely not." She pulled Lori into a hug, "Is that what you were worried about?"

Lori nodded, "I thought maybe it could have been Mim, Pip never did find her body, and with the magic factor, you never know."

"Mim would never ever ever hurt us," Kim pipped up, "just like Pip."

Lori sighed, "This summer do you think I can see a little more action?" she asked, "The only time I seem to get involved is when I'm with you at the scene, or you need back up, most my class doesn't even know there is an Aqua Ranger."

Jason picked Lori up, an easy thing to do, seeing as Lori was small for her age, "We'll see about it okay, right now it is way past your bedtime."

"Tommy," Kim suddenly gasped, "In all this excitement we forgot about Tommy."

"I'm sure that he turned up by now," Jason insisted, "I'll talk to him in the morning."

A soft snore punctuated that statement as Lori laid her head on Jason shoulder and fell asleep.


	17. Chapter 17

Jason shook his head as he entered his home room late, with his siblings close behind him.

Ms. Appleby looked up from taking role, "Do you want to explain why you are so late?"

"It's our Pip," Jason started his voice cracking.

"He spent the night in the hospital," Zack announced.

"But he is going to be released later today," Trini interrupted, nudging Zack.

"We didn't want to leave him," Kim added.

"But Pip said we needed to go to school because it was finals this week," Billy finished.

Ms. Appleby blinked, "I'm sorry to hear that, would you please take your seats."

Just then Tommy showed up, "Sorry I'm late, I forgot to set my alarm."

Ms. Appleby gave him a look, "Take a seat Mr. Oliver."

...

Tommy's eyes flashed green as he spotted Jason at his locker, "Hey Jason, want to go to the Youth Center to Spar?" he asked, friendly he had to appear friendly.

Jason shook his head, "Wish I could, but we are dealing with a bit of a family emergency at the moment."

Tommy shrugged, "That's okay I understand, I heard some others mention that your father is in the hospital, sorry to hear that."

Jason smiled, grateful that he had amazing friends like Tommy on his side. He however, never saw Tommy eyes flash green as his back turned away from Tommy and a hand reach out towards him with a power coin. All he knew was suddenly he was in a dark cave filled with fog with Goldar holding is morpher, taunting him.

...

Kim leaned against the RADBUG with a sigh, "What's taking the others so long?"

"Relax," Zack insisted, "Remember, Billy and Trini are finishing up all of their tests today."

"But school let out two hours ago, and Lori has been alone with Pip and a damaged Alpha with an Evil Green Ranger that can gain excess at any time."

"I don't like this either, our baby sister risking her life to protect our father while we sit here waiting for someone to come and attack us."

"No one is going to attack us." a new voice insisted as Trini appeared with Billy, "There's a good chance that whoever attacked the Command Center doesn't know who we are, after all, Rita has yet to attack us at home."

"Yes, but she does know who we are, she attacked us outside of the house," Kim pointed out with a huff, "It's almost as if she refuses to attack us at home."

"Maybe her reluctance to engage us at our place of refuge is because, despite their conflict and on going ill will towards each other, Rita still feels some kinship towards our father and therefore us." Billy stated.

"I don't know man," Zack insisted, "She did try to kidnap Lori, remember, and if she was involved in this whole Green Ranger thing, then she had no problem knocking her brother out."

"We best be going," Billy insisted.

"But Jason hasn't shown up yet," Kim protested.

"We'll just have to take the Cell phone, seeing as the communicators are out of commission." Billy said as Trini ran inside to grab the portable phone.

...

Lori shook her head as she sat by her father's bedside, things were not looking good. Pip still hadn't woke up, Alpha was not operational, and the Command Center was still in complete shambles.

Suddenly there was a soft thud as the RADBUG landed in the Command Center and her older siblings climbed out, she pulled herself to look away from her father long enough to check to see who had arrived, just in case.

"Where's Jason?" she asked.

"He never showed up," Kim explained, "He went to check on Tommy and hadn't showed back up yet when we had to leave."

"I'll go look for him," Lori offered, "I probably won't be much help here."

"Are you crazy?" Zack exclaimed, "You helped build an amazing virtual reality video game, you know more about computers then I do."

"Zack and I will go look for Jason, you stay here and help Trini and Billy."

"Really?" she asked eagerly, "I get to stay and help."

"Absolutely," Billy agreed, "You were right, yesterday, when you said that you can handle more than we allow you to."

"Awesome!" Lori shouted pumping her hand in the air as she did a happy dance around the Command Center.

"Glad someone found something to be happy about in this situation." Zack quipped.

...

Zack looked around the park, find Jason, that was what he was suppose to do. He nodded his head as someone called a greeting, "Hey Zack, what are you up to?"

"Looking for Jason," he called back, "I think he said something about meeting up with Tommy, you know, the new kid at school?"

"Oh yeah," the follow student exclaimed, "I just saw him terrorizing some elementary kids." he pointed over to the playground equipment, "Over that way."

"Thanks," Zack called out again, hurrying over to the playground.

Tommy was grouchy, he should be destroying the power rangers not babysitting a bunch of kids, this wasn't fair. he crossed his arms, plotting how he was going to destroy the power rangers. He had already got their precious red ranger. By now Goldar should have defeated the pesky ranger. All he needed to do was capture the other five rangers.

"Hey, Tommy," a voice called out, causing him to grin slightly, the black ranger was walking right towards him, if only he could get him alone.

"Hey Zack," Tommy said, forcing a smile and a light tone in his voice, no need to be rude to him.

"Have you seen Jason? We called his cell and he didn't answer?"

"So little Mr. Perfect isn't so perfect after all," Tommy growled.

"Tommy have you seen him, we're getting worried."

"He's a big boy Zachary," Tommy insisted, "He can take care of himself."

Zack snorted, "You know what, I don't see what Kim sees in you. She likes you likes you, and you are just a huge jerk!"


	18. Chapter 18

_Previously on Foster Mermaid Ranger: All in the Family_

"Have you seen Jason? We called his cell and he didn't answer?"

"So little Mr. Perfect isn't so perfect after all," Tommy growled.

"Tommy have you seen him, we're getting worried."

"He's a big boy Zachary," Tommy insisted, "He can take care of himself."

Zack snorted, "You know what, I don't see what Kim sees in you. She likes you likes you, and you are just a huge jerk!"

...

Chapter Eighteen:

Tommy stumbled backwards, shocked, Kim liked him, as in liked him liked him? He never really had a friend before, never really cared about it, never been in a home long enough to really make friends. Now this.

"Zack," He gasped out even though his chest seemed to contract with every thought, he had to warn him, before he did something to hurt him, or worst Kimberly and Lorelei, there was something about those two that Tommy just couldn't understand, the way his heart always skips a beat when he first sees Kim walk into a room, and Lori, he never really had a little sister, but if he did he wanted her to be like Lori, Sweet and Innocent one minute and feisty and dangerous the next.

Before Tommy could force out the fact that he was the green ranger, or that he had captured Jason and that Jason was battling Goldar in an alternate dimension and he didn't want to hurt them but he had no control over his own body anymore, there was an ear splitting shriek.

"Lori!" Zack and Tommy cried out at the same time as they raced over to where the sound came from.

Lori stood there frozen in shock as some sort of Scorpion lady held her with a tight grip on each arm, her legs dangling in the air a good six inches from the ground.

Tommy looked at the little girl, only now realizing just how small she really was compared to the monster behind her, why in the world did the power rangers allow such a young girl fight, perhaps Empress Rita was right and they did need to stop Zordon and his team of rangers, if only to stop this little kid from getting hurt.

"Man, that creep has Lori's arms pinned, without them Lori's completely defenseless!" Zack shouted, in alarm, maybe the Command Center was the safest place for her.

"Jason, Help, Please!" Lori cried out, kicking her legs uselessly against the armored legs of her capture.

Zack turned to ask Tommy to go find help, just so that he would leave so that he could morph and help his baby sister, only Tommy had already left.

...The moon palace, five minutes earlier...

"You summoned me, my empress?" a cold female voice asked as a scorpion lady approached Rita.

"Yes, Go to Earth and cause as much damage as you can, with their precious Zordon and Red Ranger out of the way those pesky little rangers won't know what hit them."

"I'm not telling her, you tell her!"

"No way, you tell her!"

Rita's eyes twitched as she felt another headache coming on, "Squatt, Baboo, what are you to yammering about!"

The two henchmen looked at each other in terror, "It's the green ranger, he's fighting the spell," Baboo finally remarked.

"He's almost broke free," Squatt announced.

"What!" Rita screamed, "How, what do you mean he's breaking free?!" she screeched, "Finster, Finster, I need you now!"

"The Green Ranger is breaking free from the spell we need a way to regain control of him before he fully regains control."

"What about the Sword of Darkness, give it to him and it will ensure that he won't break free of your spell," Finster said, nodding his head, "But you much hurry before he gains more freedom from the spell, he has to earn the sword."

"Perfect," Rita exclaimed, "Scorpina go and distract the rangers for us, and watch out for the little aqua ranger, she might look all sweet and innocent but she's not."

...

Lori heard shouts and saw Zack and Tommy running towards her, "Zack!" she shouted, swinging her legs, uselessly at the monster that was holding her captive.

"Lori!" Zack called out as Tommy suddenly turned around and jogged off in the opposite direction, "Hold on, I'll help you."

"Leave my sister alone!" Kim shouted running up from the other side than Zack had arrived.

"Leave our family alone!" another voice called out as the Yellow Ranger.

"Go back where you came from!" the Blue Ranger shouted as he appeared as well.

"You got the viewing globe working!" Lori gasped, before wrapping her leg around the monsters leg and kicked the back of her knees as hard as she could, causing her knees to buckle. As the monster tried to catch herself she let go of Lori, which allowed the little girl to scramble away.

"By the way," Lori called out, "I could have gotten free from the very beginning, I've just been toying with you."

Scorpina looked at the little girl in confusion, as she pulled out a morpher and joined the other power rangers, so that was the Aqua ranger.

She quickly backed away.

"WELL," Lori exclaimed, "She wanted to play when she had the upper hand, but the moment the table turns she flees, I really wanted to show her that new move I've been working on."

Zack placed a hand on his little sister, "Come on, we still need to find Jason."

...

Jason was fighting for his life, and it did not look good, Goldar was on the verge of finishing him off when the green ranger showed up. Jason took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off his forehead and started to fight, keeping an eye out on the floor for his morpher, if he could just find were Goldar dropped it, he could turn the tide of this fight. He had to get his morpher, he had to, or he would be toast.


	19. Chapter 19

_Previous on Foster Ranger Mermaids:_

Jason was fighting for his life, and it did not look good, Goldar was on the verge of finishing him off when the green ranger showed up. Jason took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off his forehead and started to fight, keeping an eye out on the floor for his morpher, if he could just find were Goldar dropped it, he could turn the tide of this fight. He had to get his morpher, he had to, or he would be toast.

...

Chapter Nineteen:

Jason tripped as he dodge a blow falling straight on his back, "Do you like my new sword?" The green ranger asked summoning it as he loomed over Jason, "It's a gift from my empress to help me destroy you."

Jason had to think fast, that's when he saw it, his morpher, just a little out of his reach, if he could just reach it, he could even the odds. With a little straining he finally was able to grasp his fingers around it. However, before he was able to raise it up to morph, a heavy booted foot landed hard on his arm.

Jason closed his eyes as he tried to raise his hand but it was no use, he was done for, then a voice called out his name, filled with relief, as something tackled him.

Confused he opened his eyes to see a pair of blue green eyes staring at him, "Thank goodness you're alright," the voice connected to the eyes said.

Jason laughed, wrapping an arm around his youngest sister, "Thanks to you guys," he admitted, "One second longer and the Green Ranger had me."

Just then Alpha came running in from checking on Zordon, "Come quick, I think your father is waking up!" he called out.

All six rangers looked at each other with relief in their eyes as they hurried into the medical bay area.

Zordon's eyes were fluttering as if he was forcing himself to wake up. After about a minute of that his eyes flickered open and he smiled as he saw his children, "Children," he said softly, "Rangers, watch out Rita.." his eyes closed again.

"He's going to be fine," Billy insisted, "He woke up and recognized us, he just needs to gain some more strength."

As if to help distract them from their injured father the alarm went off alerting them of a giant Goldar on the rampage.

...

"We're losing power!" Billy shouted looking at the power reserves in the twilight dusk like setting around them in all directions.

"If the Megazord is solar powered and loses power this quickly, why not attack at night or on a rainy day?" Lori asked, "Why use magic to cause an eclipse? Especially since..." her voice suddenly trailed off as the girl jumped up, leaving the megazord with a quick snort.

The others looked at each other nervously, it was obvious that she had a plan, but they were always nervous when their baby sister goes off alone on a mission, especially when she doesn't tell them what she was up to before hand. However, if she did have a plan they might have no choice but to trust her, seeing as they were fighting a large Goldar with a megazord that was quickly losing it's power.

"What's her plan?" Jason asked.

"An eclipse is when a New Moon crosses over the path of the sun," Kim reminded the others, "Since it has something to do with the moon it makes sense that it will give her some sort of boost in magic."

At that moment the Megazord was hit by a strong blast of magic, "The Zord can't take more of this," Billy announced as the zord started to fall to its knees.

Just then Lori showed up in her zord, "My zord doesn't run on solar power," she announced, "I can run it on mermaid power."

...

Alpha five almost had the command center back up and running again when an alarm went off, causing to turn around, the Green Ranger had been trapped in the force field that they had sat up for him.

"Finally we can get some answers," Jason growled, "Who are you and what do you want?!" he growled stalking up to the forcefield with Lori right behind him.

This was the first time that Lori had been face to face to the green ranger, which probably explained when she gasped, looking at him in surprise, "he's one of us," she announced.

"He might dress like us, and call himself a ranger, but while he serves Rita Repulsa he is not one of us." Jason insisted.

"No, he's a mermaid, I can sense the power in him," Lori explained.

Tommy was alarmed, if Lori could sense that then she could figure out who he was, and for some reason he didn't want Lori to know that he was the Green Ranger. With a quick blast from the sword of darkness he freed himself and teleported out.

Billy glanced at the spot where the green ranger had been standing five seconds earlier before coing to the console panel and typing something in, "If the scan worked, we should have a picture of the man behind the mask up on the viewing globe right about," he hit the enter button, "Now."

Everybody turned to look at the viewing globe and fell silent, except for Lori who said, "I told you he was a mermaid."

"That explains why he was so rude to me," Zack muttered.

"If he's the green ranger then why was he nice to me and Lori?" Kim asked.

"Because Rita has him under a spell," a new voice called out as Zordon entered the room, still clutching his head a little, "if you destroy the sword of darkness then he should be freed."

"Pip," the children called out, running over to hug their father.

Zordon laughed, hugging them all, "I'm sorry I scared you all," he apologized, "Now Alpha, see if you can't locate the green ranger, Tommy Oliver."


	20. Chapter 20

Tommy tipped his head back, trying to ignore the feeling that was trying to eat him alive. It was over with, everyone told him that. He was safe, his friends were safe. The spell had been broken.

He closed his eyes, allowing the images of what had happened a week before to flow back into his mind. He remember one second he was fighting Jason and the next he was on the ground confused and disoriented.

Since then he had been trying his best to try to fit in with the group, but it was hard. He was a loner and had been for years before now so it was hard to be a part of a group. Especially such a tight knit group that had weathered some tough times together.

"Hey Tommy," a soft, cheerful voice called out as a chair skid against the floor as Kimberly plop down next to him.

Tommy couldn't help feeling a strange t tingling sensation whenever he was near the brunette. "Hi Kim," he said softly willing himself not to blush. Kim was different from any girl he had ever met.

She was beautiful, funny, graceful and loveable. However, she was perfect and he wasn't, so nothing was going to happen between them. Ever.

"Are you going to be my partner or not?" A different voice asked behind him. Tommy turned to find Jason dressed for a workout, "We need to practice if we're going to win."

"Win?" Kim asked, glancing from Tommy and Jason in bewilderment, "what are you talking about?"

"We're entering a team ninja competition." Tommy said awkwardly as he got up to leave.

...

Trini walked up next to b Kimberly and Lori, "So how is the training going."

As if to answer her Tommy missed a kick and Jason tripped over him.

"Not good."

"They need gung ho, you know, to work together." Trini stated.

"Easier said than done," Lori announced, "both Tommy and Jason are born leaders, and neither of them are user to following someone else's lead."

Just then the practice ended with Zordon contacting them about some putty patrol activity.

...

Jason didn't understand why he had to do this mission with Tommy, he was a neat guy, but he wasn't Zack or Billy, or Kimberly or Trini or even little Lori. He knew their fighting styles, he knew they had his back.

It wasn't that he didn't trust him, but there was something about growing up together that made him trust the others more than anyone else.

Zordon never did anything without a good reason, and he was sure that having him get the new weapons with Tommy was a trust exercise.

Suddenly a pair of strong hands grabbed hold of him and pulled him back, "Look, I might be the new kid in the group, but shouldn't you be paying attention to where you were going?"

Jason glared up at the long haired recruit, "I was paying attention," he snapped.

Tommy smirked, "So you fancied a swim?"

Jason frowned, looking over towards where he had been standing seconds earlier, not only had he nearly walked into a river, but at a point were the water was rough and the current strong, even with the enhanced endurance and strength he had as a power ranger wouldn't have kept him a float for long.

Jason looked surprised as he glanced at Tommy, "We need to get across to get the weapons."

Tommy looked over at the churning water, "It would be hard, but I should be able to swim across, you, however, is an entirely different story."

Jason put his hands on his hips, "are you saying that I'm not as good of swimmer as you are?"

Tommy copied Jason's posture as he exclaimed, "I'm saying that I can breathe underwater and you can't."

"Mermaids," Jason muttered angrily as Tommy dove into the water. He should have stayed on dry ground and helped him find a safe place to cross.

There was a large splash, and Tommy resurfaced, "I think we can make it, if you can hold your breath for about twenty seconds."

Jason nodded his head, "yeah I can do that."

Jason had known that Tommy was a strong swimmer, all mermaids were strong swimmers. But he was sure that the others couldn't swim across rough waters with someone on their back like Tommy did.

Tommy curled his hand into a fist as steam rose from his tail. Within seconds he was completely dry and drying Jason off.

"The weapons are up on top of this mountain," Jason exclaimed, looking at the mountain that stood in front of them.

The two of them looked at each other, "Come on we need to get to the top." Jason said clapping Tommy on the shoulder.

Just then the ground stated to shake, rumbling loudly, Tommy looked over at Jason before glancing in the direction of a low roar. A giant robot dinosaur was heading their way. Why couldn't anything be easy, Tommy moaned as he dodged a laser blast.

"Why don't we split up," Jason suggested, "I'll distract that," he waved his hand towards the giant zord, "And you can get the weapons."

"You sure about that?" Tommy asked, getting the weapons seemed like the easy job, and just because he was the new kid on the team didn't mean that he should do the grunt work, even Little Lorelei didn't do much grunt work.

"There has got to be booby traps and stuff guarding the weapons," Jason insisted, "I want someone like you to get them. Your fast, strong, and smart, and you really know how to judge a situation, I don't think the others would have jumped into that river like you did."

Tommy didn't know how to respond to that, praise was some what of a foreign concept to him, but he did know one thing, he couldn't let Jason face that Zord by himself, it looked dangerous, "Fine, but it looks like you need my shield and Dagger more than I do," Tommy insisted.


	21. Chapter 21

Lori woke up with a start, she was not in her bed and she couldn't move her legs, she quickly sat up looking around in bewilderment, the ticking of a clock keeping time with her pounding heart. She quickly clawed her way out of the warm cloth sack she was tangled in, only to slip on the slick fabric. Luckily she was able to catch herself on a low table.

"Is she okay?" A low voice whispered in the darkness, only it wasn't really darkness it was dim.

"As long as she doesn't hurt herself she'll be fine," another voice spoke in the same hush tone, "She's more asleep than awake right now but she'll become more coherent soon."

As if to confirm that Lori took a deep breath and said, "I'm fine Tommy really, I just didn't know where I was for a second."

"Again," a new voice called out from the other side of the room, the owner not trying to keep his voice down to accommodate the other figures scattered across the living room still asleep, "Every year you do something like this and wake everyone else up."

"Yet it is your complaining that wakes everyone up year after year." Kim grumbled.

Tommy leaned back against the front of the couch watching the siblings bicker amongst themselves, he was only able to understand one in five words, as they spoke in a mixture of languages.

Just then he looked up to find a pair of doe colored eyes peering down at him, "Hi Kim," he said softly.

Kim smiled, "Hi," she said feeling a blush creeping up on her cheeks, "just so you know, Zack's making a mountain out of a mole hill. Lori sometimes wakes up confused about where she is and instincts take over. The doctor says she'll out grow it, but it hasn't happened yet," Kim shrugged, "she does fine as long as she can follow her night time routine."

Tommy nodded understanding what she wasn't saying, last night had been the start of the Feast of Heroes and they had all stayed up telling stories until they had all drifted off one by one.

...

Zordon had been up since six in the morning, supervising the final touches to the carnival before it opened for that day. There always seem to be a snag that they have to deal with, this year something seemed to be wrong with the big ferris wheel, the motor just wouldn't start.

"Looks like we moved to town when all the excitement is happening," a voice said behind him.

Zordon turned around to see a woman with soft feathery brown hair standing behind him with a teenage girl.

"Indeed," he said, "This carnival is a huge event, and benefits several local charities."

"How exciting," the girl breathed softly.

"Hey Pip," Billy's voice called out from behind him, causing him to jump a little, to have two people startle him in under five minutes was shocking, especially since Billy was with Zack and the other boys.

"Hello boys," Zordon said brightly, "where are the girls?"

"Dropping stuff off at the children's shelter." Jason replied before he was interrupted by the girl standing next to his father.

"Aren't you going to introduce us," she asked, nudging her mother.

Her mom shot her a look, and sighed, "I'm Annette and this is my daughter Charlotte."

"These are my sons, Jason, Billy and Zack, and their friend Tommy."

"Hello Jason," Charlotte said twirling a stand of hair that was obviously dyed red, it wasn't a natural shade.

...

Lori had decided to tag along with Kim and Trini and she had been enjoying it until now. What was this big sister program anyway? And why did Kim and Trini have to sign up. They already had a little sister, her, and she could do a lot of stuff that Maria couldn't.

Maria couldn't morph or fight or breath underwater. She couldn't pull water from the air or shoot water out of her hands like Spider-Man shoots webs. She was a hundred times cooler than Maria, so why did Kim and Trini picked Maria?

...

"You know," Charlotte said, linking her arm through Jason's, "why don't you show me around, I'm sure you know everything about the carnival."

"Well, I guess you can hang out with us, if you want," Jason said slowly.

"Consider you lucky," Zack added, "we don't let just anybody into the group."

Jason rolled his eyes, Zack was just being Zack he guessed but still, "Ignore him," he instructed, "Zack just likes clowning around."

...

If there was one thing Lori hated more than waiting in a long line it was waiting in a long line next to a little kid who whined and complained.

"What's taking so long?" Maria whined, tugging on Trini.

"Don't worry," Trini said, crouching down so she was eye level with Maria, "Look, they just opened up the ticket booths, it won't be long now."

Lori rolled her eyes, Maria was a couple months older than she was, but it was obvious that she was the mature one. She glanced around to see if maybe there was some interesting people to watch.

Suddenly she fixed, and blinked, surely there was some kind of mistake, she had to be setting things. There was a clown, in the shadows of the ticket booth, talking to Goldar.

"Lori, come on, you're going to get lost!" Lori looked up to notice that the line was moving fast and she was being left behind, she glanced once more towards the shadows, Goldar and the clown were gone.

She hurriedly raced up to her sisters, "Kim, Kim, Kim," she called out, "I saw a clown..."

"A clown?" Maria interrupted, "I want to see the clown. Can we go see the clowns?"

"Of course," Trini said smiling sweetly.

Lori stomped her foot, "No, we can't, the clown..."

"Lori," Trini said, her voice stern, "I know you would rather ride the rides but there is enough time for both of you to pick something to do."

"But Goldar!" Lori exclaimed at the same second that Maria asked, "can we get ice cream?"

Kim smiled, "I think these two are just excited."

Lori huffed, if her sisters weren't going to listen to her then she would just have to fine someone who would.

...

"The thing about siblings are they are always around when you don't want them and never around when you do," Lori muttered to herself, she had been looking twenty minutes and still hadn't seen her brothers or father anywhere.

A flash of red out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she hoped it wasn't another false alarm. She turned towards the movement, Jason had just gotten in line for the ferris wheel with some new girl with large brown eyes set in a round face and hair that could have only came from a bottle.

"Jason, hey Jason!" She called out.

...

Charlotte had finally convinced Jason to ditch his friends and go on the ferris wheel with her, after all, she was the new girl it would give them a chance to get to know each other better.

She smiled slyly at herself, been living here for less than twenty four hours and she already got herself a boyfriend, how lucky was she to find such a good looking, strong man that wasn't already taken, and to add icing to the cake he was rich too.

"Jason, hey Jason!" A voice called out, a female voice, and by the way Jason stiffened and started to look around she knew that he knew the owner of that voice.

"I'm sure she just wants to say hi," Charlotte said, d dragging him to the ferris wheel and handing over the tickets needed.

"I don't know she sounded upset and she isn't one to get upset easily," Jason insisted as the safety bar was locked in place.

"Who is she anyways?" Charlotte asked as the wheel started to move, she felt like she needed to know her competition.

The wheel stopped again as the seat beneath them was unloaded and reloaded again, "my baby sister, Lori, she's turning twelve at the end of the month."

Charlotte almost laughed, a twelve year old sister, she was getting worked up by a twelve year old sister, "What's it like having siblings?" She asked.

"I take it you are an only child?" Jason smiled, "it's crazy at times, sometimes I wish I was still an only child, but at the end of the day I'm glad that I know they have my back. We look out for one another, our father works a lot but it all works out."

"Tell me if I'm being rude, but Zack, he isn't really your brother, is he?"

Jason shifted slightly, here it goes, "We're adopted."

"'we're' as in both of you?"

"As in all Six of us."

...

Lori hadn't been able to catch Jason's attention before he had gotten on the ride so she waited by the exit. As soon as he and the strange girl emerged, she grabbed him and not wanting to ride alarm, hissed in Eltarian, "I saw Goldar talking to a clown right outside the carnival."

"Do you know which clown it was?"

Lori shook her head, l but I'll recognize him if I see him," she insisted.

"Did you tell the others?"

Charlotte watched as Jason talked to his younger sister in a language that seemed to have a soothing affect on her. Jason soon nodded, "We need to report this to the power ranger emergency hotline," he insisted.

"Wait," Charlotte exclaimed, "you mean that stuff is real?"

"Of course," Lori said cheerfully, "power rangers, monsters, even mermaids."

Charlotte suddenly felt nervous, "is it safe to live here?"

"Hey Jason," Tommy called out, running up to them, he ruffled Lori's hair, before turning to Jason, "have you seen Kim? I got her something." He held up a green hand mirror with some fancy carvings on the back, "you think she'll like it?"

"Yeah, she'll like it," Jason said exchanging a look with Lori, everyone knew that Kim and Tommy had a thing for each other except Kim and Tommy themselves.

"But I saw Goldar talking to a clown." Lori told the green ranger.

"Have you called it in?" Tommy demanded.

"I'm planning to," Jason said, "as soon as I find a phone, and I need to find the others too."

"But," Charlotte whined, "what about..." a loud siren sounded cutting out the rest of her question, "what is that?"

"The monster alarm," Jason said, "we should get somewhere safe."

"I'll take care of Lori and Charlotte," Tommy offered, "you make sure the others are safe."

...

Kim Trini and Maria had been having a good time, until they visited the clowns, one, a Mr. Pineapple, took an interest with Maria, who took an interest in him as well, then everything happened quickly. Trini stopped them and gave Maria a stern talking to about wandering off, and tried to take her back, but Mr. Pineapple threw some sort of dust on the little girl, turning her into a cardboard cutout.

Then Mr. Pineapple turned into a monster. Kim quickly stole a mega phone and cleared out that area of the carnival before pushing the buttons on her communicator necessary to activate the monster alarm to get everyone to safety.

"Get Maria to safety." Jason called as he appeared, already morphed and ready to fight, "we got this guy."

...

Tommy, Lori, Charlotte, and several others had took shelter at the youth center.

"Jason must be so brave, staying out there during the attack to make sure everyone is safe."

Lori and Tommy rolled their eyes at her, maybe they should point her in the direction of the Jason Lee Scott fan club president.

The door opened and a dripping wet Maria appeared, followed by the five rangers.

"We used too much water trying to break the spell," Trini explained, "I'll explain later."

Tommy jumped up, grabbed the mirror that he had won and handed it to Kim while blushing as red as Lori's hair.

"Jason, you are amazing!" Charlotte exclaimed, eagerly throwing her arms around his neck. Jason shot his friends a confused look, but all he got was a shrug from Kim who immediately turned back to admiring her new mirror. Tommy must had been listening to get when she mentioned that her old mirror had broke during a recent earthquake.

...

 **A/N okay I know it took forever to update but I was sick and now canning season has started so I'm really busy, so to make up for that this is twice as long as normal. Does anyone recognize the mirror, I didn't really know how to describe it.**


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter twenty two

It was a nice sunny Wednesday morning and Jason was back at the Youth Center trying to break Bulk's old bench pressing record. Since the Saturday before monster attack everything had been calm and had returned to normal, of course that meant that a monster attack could happen at any second. Not that Jason was trying to think about that, really all he could think about was lifting the weights up and down.

"You're doing great," Kim called out, walking over, she was dressed up nicely, due to the fact that her uncle was in town and she would be meeting up with him later that morning.

"Twenty more to go," Ernie announced.

Just then there was the sound of more footsteps and then, "What's going on here?" a voice with a slight Australian accent asked.

Charlotte, now that was a distracting thought, Jason didn't know what to think about the red head, he only knew that Charlotte thought they were a thing. At least that was what Lori had said, and Lori was never wrong, even if this time around she couldn't come up with any proof beyond a gut feeling that something was not right.

The weights slipped as his elbows buckled and he dropped them down to his chest with a huff, there went the record down the drain, Bulk was going to tease him about that for sure.

He slowly put the weights back in their nook and sat up, "Hey Charlotte," he said shakily.

"What's going on?" Charlotte asked again.

"Jason was about ready to break a record." Lori grumbled pushing her way pass Charlotte, she couldn't really explain it but whenever she was near Charlotte she just felt nervous, like she had to get out of the room. But she didn't know why she felt that way.

"I was wondering," Charlotte continued, ignoring Lori, she knew Lori didn't like her, but that was okay, she was dating her big brother and she didn't like that he didn't have time to play with her any more. She just needed to face the fact that Jason had grown up, "If you would like to go on a picnic with me, in the park?"

"Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly," a low voice whispered into Lori's ear.

Lori laughed, at least she knew she wasn't the only one to feel the way she did about Charlotte, "Hi Zack," she said glancing upward to look at him towering over her.

"She's like that doll in that one movie, you know, about that doll they keep getting rid of and every time they turned around there was the doll just sitting there."

Lori tapped her chin, thinking, "She reminds me of Ursula, she sees Ariel falling in love with Prince Eric and she couldn't have that so she puts Eric under a spell and keeps Ariel away from him because she could break the spell. Only we're Ariel and Jason's Prince Eric."

"Ursula huh," Zack asked amused, "I like it, might just have to start calling her that."

"Yeah, well," Lori shrugged, "Jason's too nice to tell her to get lost."

With that the two fell silent as Jason and Charlotte approached their table and just because they didn't trust her didn't mean that they should be calling her names, or complaining about Jason's choice in friends, all though Charlotte left a lot to be desired, if only Lori knew what that was. Charlotte was a fake, she could see that and so could Zack, now all they had to do was find enough proof to their claim to convince Jason of the same thing.

"I wish I could stay and see you break that record," Kim stated, "But Uncle Steve is taking me flying and I need to head over to the airport."

"Flying," Charlotte said her eyes lighting up, "That sounds so romantic," she placed a hand on Jason's arm, "Why didn't you tell me your uncle was a pilot, I would love to go flying with you."

"He's not my Uncle," Jason said, removing her hand from his arm as he tried to keep calm, this girl was clingy and it was getting on his nerves, "He's Kim's Uncle, and he only comes to visit Kim about twice a year, therefore it would be rude of us to expect him to take time out of his busy schedule to fly with us."

"If Kim has an uncle why was she put up for adoption, shouldn't she had been sent to live with him."

Jason shot her a look, "He had his reasons."

...

Kim was excited, sure she had flown many times before, she had her Zord and the RADBUG and Zordon's privet jet, but this was different, it was a small plane, not a luxury jet or a zord, or even a flying car, and unlike the last couple of times that she had gone flying the world didn't hang in the balance. It would be nice to finally take a relaxing flight.

She slowly entered the airport, passing Bulk and Skull who were watching the planes take off and land through binoculars. She thought for a second to ask what they were up to, but she quickly decided against it, she didn't want to have to deal with the headache that came from talking to Bulk and Skull.

"Hey, Uncle Steve," Kim called out, approaching a tall man that was standing next to a small plane.

He smiled and sat his open can of pop on the plane, "Hi, I just need to grab some maps for the local area and then we can get going."

"Kimberly, hey, Kimberly." a couple of voices called out, as Bulk and Skull came running over.

"What are you doing here?" Bulk asked.

"I'm going flying with my Uncle," Kim insisted.

"Can we come too?" Skull asked.

Kim started to protest but Steve was okay with it, and Kim wasn't a mean person and it was rather obvious that they really wanted to go flying as well. So despite her inability to talk to them without forming a headache she said yes.

...

Rita watched in amusement as Bulk tried to get into the small back seat of the plane. This was her chance, what goes up must come down and if she was clever enough it would come down harder than anticipated.

"Squatt, Baboo, I need a sleeping potion for Kimberly's Uncle Steve." she called out, as she shifted her telescope to see what the red ranger was doing. He was seating on a picnic blanket while pulling out food from a basket. A idea formed in her mind, "Finster I need a monster." she called out.

...

Jason hadn't had the heart to tell Charlotte that he viewed her as just a friend and nothing more,so he had agreed to go on the picnic with her, after all maybe if she saw that they had nothing in common she would start looking for someone else to focus her attention on.

They had only started to dish up their food when they heard a cold laugh coming from the woods around them, "Well, well well," a cold voice called out, "A ranger all alone on a date."

A strange winged monster stepped out of the shadows in front of them. Jason tensed, this was a bad time to be caught in a monster attack, "Charlotte, go to the Youth Center," he said slowly.

"What about you, what did he meant by Power ranger,"Charlotte demanded, but Jason just shook his head in response.

"I'm right behind you, I just don't want this monster following you that's all."

"Oh, you really are brave."

Jason rolled his eyes, honestly this monster was doing him a favor.

...

Kim looked out the window at the mountains, she could just make out the command center roof from were she was, but she knew that even if she pointed it out none of the others would be able to see it because it was invisible to anyone not connected to the morphin grid.

"Hey look," Bulk called out from the back seat, "isn't that your dad's summer home?"

Kim looked over in the direction that he was pointing, "No, that's Pebble creek, Pip's cabin is near Brenda Creek," she waved her hand in front of them, that's still a couple miles East of here."

Uncle Steve pressed his hand against his forehead to elevate the headache he was getting, "That's right, Kim, you're pretty good at figuring out where you are up here. You go flying a lot?"

"A little," Kim admitted, no way was she telling her uncle that she went flying at least once a week.

Steve adjusted his sunglasses which caught Kim's attention, he was sweating and he had suddenly went pale, "Uncle Steve, are you alright?"

"No," He said, "I don't feel..." what he was about to say was lost as he lost consciousness,

In the back seat Bulk and Skull freaked out until they had passed out as well.

The plane was losing altitude quickly and Kim had to think fast, raising her wrist to her mouth she called out, "Alpha, Alpha I need help!"

...

Tommy looked at the viewing globe that was split into two screens, one had Kim in a falling airplane, and the other had Jason trapped in another dimension with a monster, "Jason needs our help more than Kim," he said slowly, "Alpha can guide her down to the ground by herself, however Jason needs help right away, we need to go help him."

Just then the alarm went off, alerting them that another monster was attacking Angel Grove.

Zordon pushed a button to bring it up on the viewing globe, "The Snizzard is attacking the park," he announced, "We'll have to take care of him before we can help Jason, innocent lives are at risk." He turned to Alpha, get Kimberly down as quickly as you can safely can, the snizzard's weak spot is the apple on his head, and her power bow is the only thing that can hit it."

...

Kim was glad Alpha stayed on the communicator during the whole thing, while flying the plane was similar to flying her zord, landing the plane was completely different. She was glad that the others had been unconscious for the whole ideal too, she didn't want to explain that she was talking to an alien robot through her watch.

As soon as she landed she hurried out of the plane before the medics could stop her as they swarmed the small plane. They would be okay now, and her siblings and Tommy needed her help. Taking a deep breath she morphed and teleported out.

...

Tommy and the others were just barely holding their own when an arrow flew out of nowhere and cut the apple in half, Kimberly had arrived.

"With the apple gone, Lori and I can take care of Snizzard, you guys go help Jason." Tommy called out.

The others nodded, forming their power crystals that would be easier to teleport to Jason in the other dimension and then they could teleport through them to him.

In under a second the two power rangers were alone as the others went to help Jason.

...

Jason took a deep breath as he accepted the smoothie from Kim, today had been eventful, but that was common for Angle Grove, two monster attacks and all. The others had arrived just in time and it had been easy for them to defeat the monsters and he had been able to break the bench pressing record with the encouragement of his siblings.

Just then Charlotte appeared, her hair filled with leaves and dirt, "Jason's been attacked by a monster." she called out only to freeze when she saw Jason seating at the table with the others.

"What monster," Jason asked, "I've been with my siblings all afternoon."

Charlotte froze sputtering, "But... it had wings and looked like it was part man and part lion."

"The only monster attack that happened today was a lizard," Lori insisted, "And it didn't go back in the wooded area where you were at."

"But I saw a monster." Charlotte exclaimed.

"Look Ursula," Zack smirked, he finally could call her that to her face, "You probably just saw a squirrel or something."


	23. Chapter 23

Lori was having a good day, her birthday was only two weeks away and for once in the past week Charlotte was nowhere to be seen, making Jason available to play, not that she really wanted to play, but it was nice being able to play soccer with her older brother.

"And she shoots and score," Jason called out as Lori kicked the ball into the net he was suppose to be guarding.

Lori, however, put her hands on her hips, "You dodged the wrong way, you're letting me win!"

Jason groaned he should have known that dodging in the opposite direction would alert her to the fact that he was going easy on her, "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting, you aren't a little girl anymore, I shouldn't go easy on you." With that he kicked the ball clear across the field, only to miss the goal by several feet as it soared past.

Lori giggled, "Come on Jason you can do better than that, right?"

"True," Jason admitted, "but I'm thirsty, how about we call it a game and go to the Youth Center and grab a couple of Smoothies."

Lori nodded enthusiasticly as she raced after the ball, "Okay let's go."

The Youth Center was busy, it being the heat of the day and the Youth Center being air conditioned and all as the two siblings entered.

Jason stopped at the bulletin and pointed at one of the signs, "Two weeks until The Youth Center Annual Summer Masquerade Party, Hmm, it's on your birthday this year."

"Cool, I need to think of an awesome costume, do you think Kim can help me with that?" Lori asked her eyes glowing with excitement as she bounced up and down.

"Of course she will," Jason offered a smile to the younger girl, "You know that."

"What are you to talking about?" a voice that their whole family has learned to dread.

"Oh, no, it's Ursula," Lori muttered to herself as Jason sighed.

"Hello Charlotte."

"So what are you two talking about?"

"There's a costume party coming up, you should go as a sea witch, you wouldn't even need a costume." Lori couldn't help but add that, she knew it was childish but, hey she was a kid.

"Lori!" Jason snapped, yes he was getting as annoyed by Charlotte's clinging to him as Lori, but that did not mean that she could talk like that out loud, where Charlotte could hear her.

"Oh, don't worry, she's just jealous that you have been spending more time with me then her," with that she bent down on her knees, "Look, I get it that you don't like sharing Jason, but you just have to get use to seeing me around Kiddo, because your brother is everything that I want in a boyfriend."

"You mean the fact that Pip can give Scrooge McDuck a run for his money?" Lori asked as she smirked at Charlotte, yes she knew that she was really into the fact that his father was rich.

Jason quickly stepped between them, he might agree that Charlotte was annoying but Lori didn't need to threaten her either, "Okay let's break this up, Lori why don't you find Kim and get started on costumes."

As Lori left, after glaring at Charlotte, Jason turned to her, "Look I'm sorry about Lori, but she's just a little kid and she feels like she has to be loud to be heard."

"I understand, she doesn't want to lose her big brother."

Jason took a deep breath, "You are absolutely correct, You are welcome to hang out with us anytime you want, but I need to go, we always plan our costumes together."

"But if we're going to go together then shouldn't our costumes be matching?"

Jason raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about, I'm going with my siblings, it's Lori's birthday and I'm planning to spend the whole day with her."

"Have you ever stopped to think that the reason she doesn't have any friends her own age is because you keep dotting over her?"

"Look," Jason said, how to explain this without saying something that could blow her identity, "She's a special girl and has a hard time relating to kids her age."

"If you say so." Charlotte muttered as Jason turned to leave, it looked like Lori had already left to head back home seeing as she was nowhere to be seen.

...

Lori had left the Youth Center as soon as she could, she had to tell the others that the Party was in two weeks, they always helped with the decorations and they needed to get costumes. She rushed into the house and up the stairs to the old Play Rooms, she wasn't sure what to call them anymore, it had been a couple of years since they had actually played in there and the toys had all pretty much found new homes, however the old dress up trunk was still there and still filled with clothes of all sizes that they could use to make costumes with for the party.

"The Costume Party is on my birthday," Lori shouted, bursting into the room.

Billy and Zack looked up from the video game they were playing together, "Really?" Zack asked, "That's going to be one slamming birthday party."

"Oh," Kim shouted, jumping up from the bean bag she was seating in, watching the boys play, "That reminds me, I bought a bag full of old costume parts the other day at a yard sale. I put them in the dress up trunk. I think there was a princess dress in there."

She knelt down by the old beat up chest and opened the lid, ruffled through it and pulled out a pink princess dress.

"I don't know," Lori said, eyeing it, "It looks kind of long."

"I can shorten it," Kim said confidently.

"Shorten what?" Jason asked, appearing in the doorway.

"This princess dress," Kim stated, holding up the costume.

"Nice," Jason said, bending over to look through the box, "So what is everybody going as? Kimberly's a princess, what about everyone else?"

Lori thought for a second, "What about a water sprite, I can wear my new blue tunic that Kim's giving me for my birthday."

Kim gave her a look, "Sounds like someone's been snooping."

Lori blushed, "Okay, so maybe I did, sorry, I promise it was by accident, I was looking for you yesterday and you had it out on the bed, it's really pretty."

Kim laughed, "Okay, I guess that is understandable," she admitted, "I probably shouldn't have left it out were you could find it."

...

"You look just like Sherlock Holmes," Zack insisted.

"Thank you King Tut," Billy said.

"This is going to be so much fun," Kim said twirling around in her pink princess dress.

"So long as Rita doesn't crash the party," Lori muttered, she was dressed in her new blue tunic, blue leggings, fairy wings and a sash that said "birthday girl" on it.

"She wouldn't dare," Jason said, pulling uncomfortably at his tie.

Zack snickered at the red ranger's attire, a black tuxedo with a red tie, "You do realize that it's a costume party, not prom right?"

"Charlotte wants to go as Cinderella and Prince Charming."

Lori looked at Jason in disbelief, "You need to talk to Angela, she really knows how to say no."

Zack pretended to gasp in disgust, "it's not my fault she's busy tonight."

"Charlotte is a nice girl," Jason insisted, "which is something you would know if you try to get to know her."

"She's manipulative and pushy," Zack said ticking both points off his fingers, "What more do I possibly need to know about Ursula."

"You know Zack," Trini said placing her hands on his shoulder, "You can't go around calling people names just because you don't mind them."

"But what if it turns out that she is Ursula in disguise, or..." Lori gasped, "It could be Rita!"

"Lori!" Jason was trying hard to keep a straight face which was hard while looking at the horrified look on her face, "Come on let's get to the party birthday girl."

...

Jason tugged on his tie again, he wished he was in the robin hood costume he had originally planned on wearing because it would have been a whole lot cooler than his tux jacket.

"Stop tugging on your tie," Charlotte insisted, tugging and straightening it for him.

"Why couldn't we pick a costume that wasn't so hot," Jason grumbled as Trini and Zack walked by, Zack dressed as King Tut and Trini as Pocahontas, neither of them were wearing jackets.

"It's only hot because there are so many people in here," Charlotte insisted, "why don't we go somewhere to cool off for a second, with that she dragged him into the empty locker room. The locker room was significantly cooler, the a.c. was on and it wasn't pack full of people.

Suddenly there was a scream and a tan blur sped past them, Jason was sure that Charlotte hadn't seen it.

Just then Kim burst into the room, her princess hat dangling from the elastic strap, "Jason," she said, panic in her voice, "Tommy isn't here yet and we have a monster attacking, the others are frozen except for Trini, and I can't find her anywhere!"

Jason glanced at Charlotte, "Go hide in the bathroom," he told her, before turning to Kim, "I'll help you find Tommy."

Charlotte snorted, "Tommy is a big boy and Kim's a big girl, You don't need to hold their hands."

...

Kimberly couldn't believe that Charlotte had to mess this up. She had felt the need to make a big fuss over being made to hide that she had to hide with her. So at the moment only Jason and hopefully Tommy was fighting the large mutant turtle monster.

"I don't understand why you can't let Jason go, You and the others hold him back with the way you cling to him." Charlotte insisted.

Kim's hands curled into fists, one movement and Charlotte would be solid ice, but it would take an hour to thaw her out afterwards, but was it worth it.

"You know, you should accept Skulls offer, he's only doing it because he feels bad for you. I mean, being such a disappointment that your parents didn't even wa..." Kim's hand snapped forward before Kim even knew she wanted it to and Charlotte was frozen mid word. Pip and or Tommy would have to thaw her out, or not, she really did not care either way. she was usually a happy go lucky person, but she had her limits.

"Okay," Kim muttered to herself, "Let's go save the day now that Ursula has been taken care of." She paused for a second, Oh no she was starting to sound like Zack!

...

Tommy used his dragon tail drill to punch the turtle until the monster finally burst into flames. He had barely finished his costume when Jason had called him telling him that the others had been frozen in place. He had rushed over and helped as much as he could until Kim and Trini appeared, Trini with the flower that could unfreeze the others.

After that the monster was defeated easily and the party had started up again. Kim looked at the party before turning to Tommy, "I need your help with something."

"What?" Tommy asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I might have accidentally froze Charlotte in the bathroom..." Kim blushed, trailing off.

Tommy nodded, "Trini and Lori keep everyone else out of the bathroom," he ordered, before wincing and glancing at Jason, he was the new kid in the group and he was giving orders like he was in charge. However, Jason just nodded, Tommy was a natural leader and this seemed more of a mermaid problem then a power ranger problem, although how Kim accidentally froze Charlotte was a mystery to him, he thought she had complete control over her powers, and it wasn't a full moon.

"I'll come help," Billy offered.

As the mermaids went off to deal with the frozen girl in the bathroom, Zack froze, a voice had just traveled over to him, "Guys do you hear that?" he asked surprised, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from.

"Yeah," Trini agreed, "I think that it came from over there," she pointed to a gaggle of girls.

Jason carefully made his way to the center of the group, "Alpha!" he exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

"Dude!" Alpha exclaimed, and seeing Trini who had followed him added, "Dudette!"


	24. Chapter 24

It was amazing on how fast Zack's mood had changed, this morning he had woke up rearing to go, now, it was nearly time for lunch and he was ready to curl up in his room and forget all about the upcoming dance competition, after all it wasn't like he had a chance to win.

It had been an accident, honest, he landed a flip wrong which caused him to trip and stumble into Kimberly who spilt her smoothie down Bulk's front. And Bulk was not happy about it.

Of course Bulk trying to upstage Zack had the same result as usual with Bulk crashing head first into the wall.

"Looks like you taught them a new dance," Kim said with a giggle.

Just then Tommy, who had been teaching a couple off kids karate, walked up, having seen what happened, laughed, "Yeah the crash and burn."

Zack shook his head, "he just tripped himself up," he looked down at his feet, "Just like I'm going to at the big competition."

"Don't say that Zack!" Lori exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her older brother's waist as she peered up at him.

Zack looked at Lori for a second before pulling her off, "I know you are trying to make me feel better, but even you can't make me a better dancer." With that Zack walked away.

Tommy was surprised, Zack always seemed so confident.

"Zack seems to be experiencing a transient decency in self-esteem," Billy announced which made Tommy cringe inside, when his friends weren't speaking an Alien Language, Billy was using big words.

"He means Zack doesn't have enough confidence in himself," Trini translated.

Lori jumped up and said something quickly in Eltarian, and while Tommy was learning the strange language he could only pick up the fact that she was talking about Zack and power rangers and a possible spell.

"Uh..." He said slowly, glancing at Kim for help.

"She's got a point," Kim said, trying hard not to look at Tommy, knowing that she would not be able to conceal the blush if she did, "She pointed out that it isn't like Zack to act like this, and suggested that Rita might have casted a spell on him."

"Cast a spell on who?" A voice asked behind them, which caused everyone to groan and Tommy to move learning Eltarian to the top of his to do list, Charlotte had overheard Kim translating Lori.

"Oh, Zack has been acting a little weird today and Lori suggested that he was under a spell."

"There is no such thing as magic," Charlotte insisted.

"Then how do you explain the monster attacks," Lori asked, hands on her hips, "You can't not believe in magic if you live in Angel Grove."

Charlotte shook her head slightly, wrapping an arm around Jason and started to drag him away, "Well I just got my first paycheck so I'm treating you to lunch."

As soon as the two of them left, the others looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"You know," Tommy said, "Come to think about it, I'm starving."

Just then there was a loud crash of thunder and the ground stated to shake, "Rita must be behind this!" Kim called out.

"We need to find Zack and Jason." Trini insisted as they raced toward the door, Tommy helping Kim to stay upright as the ground bucked and rolled beneath them.

Trini froze, looking at her siblings and Tommy "Guys, where did Lori go?"

Kim looked at Tommy with concern in her eyes, "Lori is afraid of thunder, and this storm is particularly bad."

"Help!" A voice called out, causing Tommy to turn around, his students were huddled under a table.

"I can't leave my students," Tommy called to his friends, "you guys go find Jason and Zack, I'll check around here for Lori."

With that Tommy half walked half slid over to the kids, relief filling him when he noticed that Lori was with them.

"Guys," he said, "everything is going to be alright," he insisted.

However Lori didn't respond, which confused Tommy for a second until he remembered that Lori considered English as a second language, seeing as she and her family spoke Eltarian at home. He scrunched up his face as he tried to remember what Kim always told her when she was upset, he tried to imitate what she said but Lori laughed at him.

"You just said your dog smells bad," Lori giggled.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Tommy asked gently.

"You want to talk about your smelly dog?" One of the boys asked.

"No," Tommy said exasperated, "I want to talk about why you guys are scared, is it because of the storm or something else."

"My parents died in a storm," Lori said softly.

Tommy nodded, "I understand, but look the storm is already letting up."

Tommy was right the storm was letting up, and in five minutes the younger kids were playing on an arcade game as Tommy's communicator went off.


	25. Chapter 25

"Where are we?" Lori demanded as she looked around the strange forest.

"Rita's spell must have transported us here," Jason guessed, "is everyone okay?"

"We appear to have survived the transdimentional journey intact," Billy said examining his hands to make sure all of his fingers were attached.

"Not quite," Zack said, panic filling his voice, "Our communicators are gone!"

"So's our morphers!" Trini exclaimed, checking her back pocket.

Lori frowned as she flicked her arm out, "My magic, it's gone! How did Rita steal my magic?"

"Let's take a look around, just to see where we are," Jason said, "everyone stick together now."

"I'm not going anywhere," Kim insisted grabbing onto Jason's arm.

"Jason," Lori cried, "I'm scared, and I think those bushes are watching us."

"I have to agree with Lori on this one this place is freaky," Zack announced, before freezing, he thought he saw something in the bushes.

"Is something the matter Zack?" Billy asked.

"I thought I just saw a..." Zack thought for a second trying to decide how to describe what he saw, or did he, maybe he was seeing things, besides it, what ever it was, was gone, "never mind just forget it."

Just then there was the sound of pipe music being played badly, "oh," Kim cried, "what is that noise, it's seriously out of tune."

"Yeah," Zack said with a laugh, "it makes Lori's recorder sound good."

"Hey," Lori called back her eyes flashing.

"Not now," Jason hissed as they found a dwarf sitting in the clearing playing a pipe.

"Hello," Kim said softly, "Um, do do you think you could help us? You see Rita..."

The dwarf jumped up, "Rita!" He cried out, holding up his arm to them, "Stay away and don't come near, that wicked witch sent you here, no friend of hers is a friend to me, you can't fool Quagmire no siree," with that he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Was it something I said?" Kim asked.

"Did you lose your precious power coins?" A familiar voice called out, "don't worry you'll lose more than that by the time you get off this island."

"Goldar," Lori shouted, pointing to the monkey man's giant floating head in the sky.

"Look," Kim shouted, pointing to were a bunch of monsters were approaching.

"This place is full of monsters," Zack stated, even though it was pretty obvious.

"Monsters we already defeated!" TrinI exclaimed.

Tommy didn't like the look of things, no way to contact Zordon, no way to morph, and no magic on an island full of monsters. Just as they crouched into a fighting position, the monsters disappeared.

"Welcome to Rita's island of illusions, where the only thing real is the danger," Goldar laughed before disappearing.

"I don't think I can handle this," Zack muttered to himself, walking away from the others, suddenly he froze, he was staring eye to eye with a giant spider, he hated spiders.

Tommy and the others hadn't even noticed that Zack had wondered off until they heard his ear splitting scream.

"What's the matter," Jason demanded.

"The giant spider," Zack exclaimed, "I hate spiders it's going to eat me!"

"What spider?" Kim asked looking in the direction that Zack was pointing, all she saw was a bush.

"Dude you're seeing things," Jason insisted, peering in the Bush, there was no spider anywhere in sight.

Billy examined the Bush as well, "I believe that Rita is making us doubt ourselves and use our fears against us." He finally announced.

"How do we fight something like that?" Tommy demanded.

"We can't," Zack insisted, plopping down on the ground and putting his head in his hands, "I don't feel so good." He announced.

Lori glanced at her older brother and let out a scream, "Zack you're fading," she announced as her brother stated to turn translucent.

Suddenly the tune deaf dwarf from before appeared from thin air and said, "if Rita makes you doubt and fear soon you're going to disappear." With that the little man disappeared again.

The teens looked at each other in disbelief they didn't need Billy to translate to know that Zack was in trouble.

"Fight it," they screamed, "you have to fight it."

Billy said something that Tommy didn't quite catch but Kim sounded confused as well, so Trini, who thankfully remembered to speak English announced, "the more Zack doubts himself the less there is of him."

Just then the little man from before appeared, "fight Rita if you can only Quagmire knows her plan." With that he disappeared again.

"If only we can contact Pip," Trini moaned as she watched her sibling fading away.

"Yeah, but no communicators," Tommy pointed out before adding, "What about that weird dude?"

"He mentioned that he knew Rita's plan," Jason added, "what's his name, Quincy?"

"Quagmire," Trini said.

"Speak my name and I appear," Quagmire said, appearing in a tree, "so why did you call Quagmire here?"

"It's our friend, our brother really," Kim began, "Zack, Rita's making him disappear."

"You're no friend of Rita," Quagmire jumped down from his branch and grabbed hold of Kim's hand, shaking it as he added, "Then Quagmire is glad to meet ya."

The little guy ran forward, "to keep from being caught think a positive thought."

"Is this guy for real," Tommy muttered.

"If lack of confidence is the operative, then it might just work," Billy announced cursing himself for not thinking about that earlier.

"Give it a try," Jason ordered.

"I'll try," Zack, think about his birthday party, "I'm remembering a tough fight."

"It's working,"Kim called out.

"That nasty knight was tough but I kept fighting and I won!" Zack said happily before noticing he was solid again.

"Alright it worked." He turned to Quagmire, "thanks for the pep talk.

"My pleasure, and welcome back, but the key was inside of you, Zack."

"We need our power coins, do you know where they are?" Jason asked.

"You might get home, but the coins you seek you must find on your own. " With that Quagmire disappeared.

"Let's look in this direction." Billy suggested, however before they could start looking Kim took a step in the other direction.

"I don't believe this," she insisted, for she was seeing her parents, together, talking about all the fun things the three of them were going to do that summer, "my parents together, and not fighting?"

"Kim are you okay?" Zack asked, looking at the river bank, nobody was there.

"I don't know," Kim admitted, stepping forward to look at the others, "if Rita can get my parents back together, then they'll come back for me, and I'll never see you guys again."

"You're demolecularising," Billy shouted as Kim started to disappear.

"Quagmire, please help Kimberly!" Trini called out.

"A toad might frighten to the marrow, stay your course, as straight as an arrow." Quagmire said appearing.

"Oh, man not the toad monster," Kimberly groaned he was so gross, "I don't think I want to remember that, he was so gross."

Tommy pushed his way through the others, "Kimberly you got to try."

"He was big and ugly, but my weapon was the only one that could defeat him so I did what I had to do." Kim smiled as she rematerialized.

Tommy grabbed her into a large hug and was contemplating rather a kiss was appropriate or not when Lori squealed, "No stop!"

Everyone turned to the younger girl her hands were over her ears and she was rocking back in forth on her heels, her heels that weren't there anymore.

"Quagmire!" Trini called out.

"Though thunder booms and lightning flash, remember when you made your big splash?"

Lori smiled at the memory, "I was at the moon cove, and Billy's morpher fell in. The others were outnumbered, but I was able to fight them off."

They however had no time for celebration for Tommy suddenly saw, "putties everywhere," he called out before attaching his friends.

"There's to many, no way I can win," Tommy announced as he started to fade away.

"Quagmire," Jason called out.

"Dude, don't let Rita steer you wrong, with strong thoughts, you'll be strong."

"Right," Tommy said, "strong thoughts, I was all on my own but I knew I could do it," he reappeared, "and I did!"

Everyone cheered, Tommy was safe, however, Trini didn't cheer, "I'm afraid Rita might come after me next," she admitted before she started to disappear, "No, Billy, you're to high!" She cried out.

"It's just like my illusion," Lori hissed, she's stuck on that cliff like I was stuck in that storm."

"Quagmire!"

"Trini had to conquer height, even though it was her greatest fright. Now my child, do your best to pass this part of Rita's test."

Trini jumped up, while again and hugged the others, that was until she realized that billy's arm had disappeared.

"Billy?"

"It's no use," Billy confessed, "Even all my scientific knowledge can't get us out of this one."

"No Billy," Jason urged, "fight it."

"Quagmire."

"Billy hold on tight, remember what happened the other night."

"What happened the other night?" Jason asked, "Come to think about it he did come home kind of late."

"I was alone, on my way home from the library," Billy started, "when I was ambushed by putties, I didn't have a chance to call out, but I was able to escape and get home."

As soon as they were sure that Billy was safe Jason turned around, "let's get our power coins and get out of here."

"If you really were the leader of the power rangers you would have gotten out already." Goldar snared.

"He's right,"Jason groaned.

"Quagmire."

"Dear. Oh, dear, nasty magic happening here."

Jason watch in horror as his siblings and Tommy disappeared, "No," he cried out, they were counting on me and I let them down, now they're gone."

"He can't see us," Kim gasped.

"Maybe he can still hear us," Lori suggested, "Jason Bulk made Kim cry. Hmm... that usually works. He can't hear us."

"Inside you know your power's great, you can win, just concentrate." Quagmire's voice echoed through his mind.

"Right," Jason said, standing up, "you haven't won yet Rita!" He announced, "I remember the sphinx, it was a tough battle but I won."

The others raced over to hug Jason, as their power coins and communicators appeared.

"We had them all along." Jason exclaimed.

"We had what it took to break Rita's spell inside us," Tommy pointed out.

"Yeah," Zack agreed, "all we needed was a little self confidence."

Just then the ground started to shake, "let's get out of here," Jason ordered, as they all teleported out.


	26. Chapter 26

It was a bright and sunny day and for some odd reason the youth center was quite, nobody was there, Ernie smiled to himself, he could really use the time to pick up some supplies that somehow hadn't been in his last delivery. He looked around, the only ones there were Tommy and Kim, and they were busy working on a model float for a competition Kim was entering. He kind of smiled at himself as he paused long enough to notice how well those two work together, they definitely had chemistry together, which was probably why all of Kimberly's siblings, even Lori who had been taking pictures of the whole process with her new camera, suddenly had something else to do today when Tommy showed up asking to help. He smiled knowingly before heading out.

Tommy was enjoying helping Kim, even if he had no idea what he was doing beyond handing Kim what ever flower our seeds she asked for, and half the time he didn't know what they were unless he read the label.

"What do we have here?" An obnoxious voice asked, as Bulk and Skull entered the center.

"Center's closed," Tommy informed them, "didn't you see the sign out front?"

"Then what are you doing here?" Bulk asked, jabbing a finger at Tommy's chest. Tommy looked at it with interest, it was amazing that Bulk would keep picking fights with him and his friends when he could easily beat the Billy while hog tied.

"Yeah," Skull echoed with his annoying laugh, "What are you doing here?"

"Ernie gave us permission to work here on Kim's float." Tommy said but he immediately regretted it for Bulk took interest in the model they were building and leaned in to smell the flowers, and he was a big enough clutch that he could easily end up tripping and smashing the float. He posed himself ready to push the table out of the way if Bulk started to tip over, the competition deadline was that night at midnight.

As soon as he left with Skull, sneezing and blowing his nose on Skull's handkerchief, Kim and Tommy burst out laughing, before turning back to the float.

"Oh no!" Kim exclaimed, "The head of the tiger is on crooked, and the glue is already set."

"Did you use hot glue?" Tommy asked, holding his hand up, "If so I can loosen the glue a bit and we can re set it."

"Tommy you're a genius," Kim admitted, "I never thought to use our magic on it, it would speed things up, I won't have to hold things in place while the glue sets, I'll just cool it down quickly."

The two teenagers were so busy with their project they were taken by surprise when putties arrived and attacked before quickly disappearing before the two rangers could recover from the surprise.

"Oh no!" Kim called out picking up what was left of her float, it was ruined, "There is no way I can fix this before the deadline, it's over with, the whole thing, over."

"Kim," Tommy began, but Kim had already shouldered past him and was out the doors. Tommy frowned, maybe he could get a little help from the others and put the float back together before the deadline.

He scooped the pieces up and put them in a garbage bag before heading to the Ranger Mansion.

...

Jason was trying to have some fun with the others despite Charlotte showing up, again, as usual, he was getting fed up with her just as much as the others, Kim wouldn't tell him what Charlotte said, but he knew that Charlotte must have said something to her to cause her to freeze her like that. Once a mermaid has control over their powers they don't lose it, unless they lose their temper first.

At least at the moment Charlotte was trying to get along with the others, and the others with her.

Just then the door opened and Tommy entered the room, causing Zack to hit the pause button on the video game, "What's wrong?" he demanded, "I thought you and Kim were on a date."

Tommy felt his cheeks burn bright red, "It wasn't a date, I was helping her build her float for the competition, but this happened," with that he dumped the float remains onto the floor, "I was hoping that you guys can help me put it back together for her?"

"Oh that is so romantic," Lori breathed, causing the others to laugh.

"So where's Kimberly?" Charlotte asked.

"Don't know," Tommy confessed, "She was pretty upset when the float broke, I figured that she just needed time alone to calm down."

Before anyone could say anything else Jason's communicator went off.

"What was that?" Charlotte demanded.

"My pager," Jason lied, "Pip wants us to meet him in his office in town. I'm sorry but we are going to have to leave."

"Can I come with?" Charlotte asked.

"Bye Ursula," Zack and Lori said in unison as Jason lead Charlotte out the front door.

...

Zordon let out a sigh of relief as the teens teleported into the Command Center, "Rita is trying to destroy the Flower Power World Peace Parade."

"She'll destroy all the floats like she did Kimberly's" Lori gasped, before frowning, "Where is Kim anyway."

"Ay Yi Yi," Alpha exclaimed, "I can't get a hold of Kimberly she's not answering her communicator."

"I fear that I have a simple explanation as to her lack of communication, the clasp on her communicator has worked it's way loose, and I have yet to tighten it."

"With a loose clasp her communicator could have easily fallen off at any time," Jason reason.

"Probably in the fight with the putties," Tommy guessed, "I bet the communicator is in with the rest of her float."

"We must find her," Zordon insisted, "Rita has sent down the Spit Flower Monster," he pointed toward the viewing globe, where the monster was attacking the park causing the flowers to attack random people, "It has the power to turn every flower in Angel Grove into an evil biting blossom. His skin is like armor and he only has one weak spot."

"Oh oh," Lori said, "Weak spots are Kim's specialty, our weapons don't have the precision needed to hit it."

"I could try to hit it with my daggers," Trini offered, "but I don't have the range Kim does."

"Tommy and Lorelei will have to locate Kimberly while the rest of you hold the monster off, I sense that she is probably seeking refuge at a mermaid hotspot."

"That still leaves two places we know of," Lori pointed out, "Mermaid Lagoon and Moon Cove."

"Then we best get going."

"There is a ninety eight percent chance that she is at Mermaid lagoon," Billy insisted, "As it is less likely for someone to stumble upon her there, the cliffs where the moon cove is located is popular among rock climbers."

"Then we will head there first," Tommy said, "Contact us if you need us."

...

Kim wasn't in the mood to see anyone, which was why she had chosen to come to Mermaid lagoon on Ranger Island when she wanted to get away. So she wasn't to please when Lori and Tommy's heads popped up out of the water.

"Kim there you are," Tommy said, relief in his voice, "Rita sent down a monster and you are the only one that has the weapon that can stop it."

"Yeah," Lori agreed, "She's planning on ruining the whole parade, not just your float."

"No way," Kim said, standing up, "It's one thing to mess with me, but no one, and I mean no one messes with World Peace on my watch."

...

Jason and the others were fighting a losing battle and they knew it, they needed the others and quickly. Never again would he laugh at Flower Power again, suddenly a green streak hit the spit flower, causing him to double over in pain, just long enough for a narrow streak of pink to hit the monster in the weak spot causing it to explode.

...

Tommy looked at the time, yes, he still had time to get the model to the competition. Kim was going to be so surprise when she found out that her float was going to make it to the competition anyways.

He carefully entered the youth center, balancing the float in his arms, only to freeze, Charlotte was presenting the judges with a float model.

"I didn't know you were entering the competition," Tommy stated.

"That's because I didn't want to mention it to Jason, you know, since Kim was going to be in it until her float got destroyed, didn't want Jason to have to choose between me and Kim, seeing as Kim gets so mad when he chooses me, Besides, I thought cheating wasn't allowed." Charlotte continued, turning to the judges, "His float is identical to the one that my boyfriend's younger sister was designing and it was destroyed, obviously Tommy here was planning on entering her design in the contest."

Tommy felt a strange tingling in the back of his eyes, as he growled in a voice that he had only ever heard himself use while under Rita's spell, growled, "Then why am I entering it under her name," With that he thrust the entry form into the judge's hand without breaking his focus on Charlotte who was looking really scared.

"What's wrong with your eyes?" she finally gasped out. Tommy frowned, picking up a napkin dispenser to use as a makeshift mirror, his eyes were flickering between his normal brown and bright neon green.

"I..." Tommy paused, "I have to go." He finally said, racing off.

... Two weeks Later...

Kim was not going to watch the parade, or hear the results for the competition, even if she was stuck at the Youth Center with the parade on TV.

Just then someone sat down at her table with a deep sigh, Kim looked up and was not surprise to see Tommy seating across from her, however she was surprise to see that his eyes were flashing, "What's wrong, your eyes..."

"I had an argument with my foster mom," Tommy explained, "She doesn't want me to start a Martial Arts Club with Jason, but we already have a booth for Club sign up day."

"Why not?" Kim asked softly.

"She's pretty sure that my behavior before you broke the spell on me was because of martial arts. She's one of those who views martial arts as a violent thing. I tried to explain to her, but she won't listen." he sighed, calming down enough that his eyes had stopped flashing. After he had discovered that his eyes were flashing after his talk with Charlotte he had gone to Zordon, who had run some tests. It was nothing to worry about, just a side effect of Rita's spell that he probably would have to deal with the rest of his life. This was, luckily only the third time that his eyes had flickered and only the second time that someone had noticed, the last time, he had had his helmet on. Maybe it would be a good idea to buy some sunglasses to hide the flickering.

"I'm looking for Kimberly Hart?" a male voice called out.

Kim stood up, "That's me," she said.

"Congratulation," the Judge said, "You won first place."

"What, how..." Kim stammered.

"Tommy," Lori said, plopping down next to them, "He fixed the model and entered it for you," with that she returned to looking at a piece of paper with a long list on it and highlighting stuff with a highlighter, "So many clubs," she muttered, "It's going to be hard to just pick one or two..."


	27. Chapter 27

"It's hard to believe summer is almost over with," Trini said as she taped a poster to the table she was assigned to, anyone who walked by would know that she was representing the Angel Grove High Volleyball club.

"I know," Kim agreed, "your birthday is tomorrow and then school starts two weeks after that." She posted her gardening club poster at her assigned booth.

"I think it's cool how Ernie and Principal Caplan arranged to have a club sign up day before school started," Tommy added, setting a cactus on Kim's table, "It's a great way for new students to make friends before the first day of school, and everyone is bond to find something they are interested in. I wish my old school did something like this, it would have made making friends easier."

"Easy for you to say," Lori grumbled, appearing with a list of the different clubs that she had been pouring over in the past two weeks since the club sign up day list of clubs had been available, "they all sound fun and I don't know which one to choose."

Kim tried hard not to laugh as Trini offered, "you like volleyball, why don't you sign up for volleyball club."

"You could always sign up for martial arts," Tommy offered demonstrating a simple kata.

Lori, however, shook her head, "thanks for the advice but, I don't want to be known as so and so's little sister. I'm twelve now, I need my own identity." She looked at the paper, "maybe the oceanology club, no what if they decide to go scuba diving," she muttered as she wondered off.

"She's so lively and carefree it's shocking how serious she's being about choosing a club." Tommy commented.

"Well, she probably feels like this is her chance to do something different from the rest of us, she's the youngest of six, by the time she did something it was already old news."

Tommy nodded before excusing himself to help Jason as people started to trickle in.

...

Kim looked at her communicator, checking the time on its watch face, it had officially been an hour, and the only one to stop by her booth had been a group of seventh graders asking for directions to the dance club. She had dutifully pointed out Zack, and tried not to sigh as Trini was swarmed with people for volley ball. At least one of them was going to have a club.

"Hey," Bulk called out from his booth, "you can't do much with a club of one, can you Miss Flower Power?"

Kim shot him a look, but Bulk wasn't done yet, "is your sister stealing all the club members?" He asked.

"Lighten up," Kim told him, "sooner or later someone is going to show up."

"Yeah right," the two bullies scoffed.

Kim turned around and left, though she didn't go far, just to the counter to order a juice. Ernie tried to give her a pep talk, but she wasn't really in the mood. She returned to her booth and shifted one of the plants hissing as she pricked her finger on a needle.

She glared at Trini, this was all her fault anyway, if she hadn't hogged all the club members she would be out planting flowers not in here, getting her finger pricked.

She stormed over to Trini, "Way to go Trini, you hogged ask the students for your club."

"I didn't do it on purpose," Trini insisted as Zack and the others appeared behind her.

"Yeah, man don't take it personal." Zack insisted.

"I'll help you get some members right after I'm done with my first practice," Trini offered.

Kim snorted, "I don't need your help," she snarled before storming off to where Bulk and Skull was hanging out in front of the juice bar. "Don't tell me the two of you actually have members in your club."

"Yeah," Skull told her, "But mainly because we offered them free food."

"You would think more people would be interested." Bulk added, "We are going to be the ones to find out the power rangers true identities."

Kim sighed, even Bulk and Skull lame unsolved Mystery club had members and she didn't.

Jason and Tommy, who where standing next to Bulk and Skull exchanged looks, something was wrong with Kim.

Ernie, who had witnessed the exchange and had been told of Kim's disappointment that no one had showed up, and had heard the conversation pulled a flower from a vase on the counter and handed it to Tommy, "Why don't you give this to her, you know to cheer her up."

Lori wondered over to the counter, "Hey Ernie, can I get a fruit smoothie," she looked over to were Tommy and Jason was talking to Kim, who snapped at them and stormed off, "What's wrong with Kim?" she asked.

"She's upset that nobody has joined her club," Ernie explained.

"I'm having the opposite problem," Lori explained, "I wanted to look more into the Mythology Club, but according to this," she held the piece of paper she was holding up, "It should be here at the youth center, but it's nowhere here, so I think I'm going to head over to the school and see if there was a typo in the paper," she nodded to her siblings, "Do you mind telling them where I went, looks like they're busy cheering Kim up."

...

Lori smiled as she noticed the sign that said Mythology Club, she was right the location was wrong in the paper. She approached the booth, the club president, a strong looking senior, looked down at her in amusement, "Aren't you a little young?" he asked.

"I'm twelve and am starting seventh grade, club sign up day is for seventh through twelfth grade," Lori pointed out, "So what kind of mystical creatures do you study?" she asked, "Or do you focus on Greek mythology?"

"We each take turns picking a myth to learn about, why?"

"I have this thing about Mermaids," Lori confessed, "Not only are there stories about them from all over the world and they range from good to neutral to bad, but some of the sightings and stories come from a more recent time period from most myths, some sightings can be dates as early as the fifteenth and fourteenth century."

"My favorite mythological animal is the Griffin, I've read that you can't lie to them."

Lori giggled, as she signed her name on the sign up sheet, "Hey," the Club President exclaimed, "You're Kimberly Hart's younger sister, aren't you?"

Lori nodded her head, "Yeah, that's me."

"Do you know where your sister's club sign up booth is at?" he asked, "My little sister has been looking for it, she loves flowers and is hoping that your sister can teach her how to keep them alive."

"Yeah, she's over at the Youth Center, where's your sister..." anything else she was about to say was drowned out by a loud siren that started blaring.

"Well, she's going to have to wait until after the monster attack to sign up."

...

Kim slowly trudged back into the Youth Center, it was one thing to be a little jealous of her sister's popularity, but it was another for Rita to cast a spell making her jealousy worst then it actually was and then send a monster, luckily Trini was able to break the spell, and they were able to defeat the monster.

"Kim," Trini cried out behind her, "Look," Kim looked up to find a large swarm of people around her booth.

"What?... How?" Kim asked, totally shocked.

"There was a mix up with some of the booths' locations," Lori explained, "I told your friends where you were."

"Everyone freeze right where you are," Bulk's voice sounded behind them as they came in covered in muck, "We're about to reveal the true identities of the power rangers!"

"You actually found out who the power rangers are?" Zack asked.

"We recorded their voices," Bulk explained, "Now all we have to do is play it back and figure out who they sound like."

Skull hit the play button on the tape recorder, while the power rangers looked at each other in concern, except for Tommy who was focusing on the tape recorder.

When the tape didn't start, Skull opened the thing up and said, "Uh Bulky? The tape melted."

"What?" Bulk yelled, "How did the tape melt?"

The rangers turned to Tommy, who stuck his hand in his pockets with a shrug.

"This next school year is going to be interesting." Lori observed.


	28. Chapter 28

The loud beeping of her alarm clock drew Kimberly out of a fitful sleep, the teen girl looked groggily at it before groaning, "Morning already?" She stretched, rolling over to turn off her alarm, only to knock off her lamp which crashed to the floor with the sound of shattering glass. Kim winced, that did not sound good.

She once more tried to turn off the blaring alarm, only this time, she was the one that fell out of bed and onto the floor with a loud thump.

There was a knock on her door, and Jason called out, "Kim are you ready yet, you need to leave early because it's going to rain! Billy and Lori already left."

"I'm still getting ready," Kim called back as she ran her hand through her hair only for it to get stuck half way through. "Oh, no," she groaned to herself, this could not be happening, not when the big start of school assembly was that day, and the cheerleaders were suppose to perform, and that included her, although she was debating about quitting.

She jerked her head up, she really needed a cup of coffee right now, she nearly nodded off again, as she grabbed the mirror that Tommy had won her at the carnival during the summer, as she had been afraid of, her hair was a giant rat's nest.

"Well that's going to slow me down," she thought angrily as she pulled her robe on over her nightgown before climbing up onto her window seat to check the weather outside. It was gray and overcast, not a good sign for a mermaid. Maybe she could hurry and get to school before the storm broke?

As she headed towards her closet, there was a blinding light as lightning struck, and then almost immediately afterwards the loud crashing of thunder and the sound of pouring rain. Great, hopefully Pip knew a way for her to get to school without growing a tail.

She threw open her closet and grabbed an outfit only to groan, she had worn the outfit during a monster attack and it was burnt. She threw it on her chair in disgust as she pulled another out, today was going to be a bad day.

...

Zordon looked at Kim with concern as she looked out the window, "When is the rain suppose to stop?" she asked, glancing at her father.

"Sometime this afternoon," he replied, getting up, "I have a potion that will make you immune to water for about an hour," He informed her, "I'll take you to school, and you can take it before you head in, if you use an umbrella you can be dry before the time runs out, as long as you don't go jumping in puddles."

"Being a mermaid sucks," she muttered.

...

Kim glared at her umbrella, which was broken up, she was totally drenched and she didn't think that she could dry off before the hour was up, unless she tracked down Tommy and pleaded for his help.

She shoved the umbrella in the garbage on her way to her locker, surely nothing worst could happen today right?

As she grabbed her books, she heard someone come up behind her, "I see that you weren't kidding when you said that you couldn't make our date because you had to stay home and wash your hair."

"I never made a date with you, you creep," Kim snapped back, Which caused Skull to act out being stabbed in the heart.

"Oh," Bulk said in a high pitch voice, "I just washed my hair and can't do anything with it."

"Why don't you two clowns join a circus?" a new voice called out.

"Oh, no," Kim muttered, "Tommy."

Bulk was probably about to pick a fight with Tommy when the bully noticed that Tommy's eyes were flashing green again, like they had that one time. Bulk and Skull looked at each other before Bulk told Skull, "Come on, Skull, these losers aren't worth our time."

Tommy shook his head, "I see it's wet out."

"I'm a total wreck," Kim exclaimed, "and I have less then an hour now to dry off before I grow a tail," she hissed.

"I was kind of wondering about that," Tommy admitted, as Kim closed her locker, "I had to get to school an hour early to avoid the rain, how?"

"Pip has a potion, but it only works for an hour and can only be taken once a day."

"Why don't I help you dry off?" Tommy offered, "But not here, I think that there is an empty classroom over there we can use," he nodded down the hall, "No one will bother us there."

...

Under a minute later Kim was completely dried much to her relief, "Thank you so much Tommy, now I can go over these prep rally plans with Mr. Caplan," she opened her notebook, only to find her notes and stuff inside it totally ruined.

"Great," she groaned, "What next?"

Tommy nudged her shoulder, "Come on the day is still new, things will get better, and if the rain stops before school lets out, I'll walk you home, okay?"

...

Kim looked around the parking lot, there was almost no sign of the storm that morning, the rain had stopped around ten and by noon the sun was shining. It was the first good thing that had happened to her all day. That day had been the worst in her enter life, including the day her parents left her. She had bombed a quiz in math, lost her history notes, got hit in the face with a dodge ball during P.E, tripped and knocked over a pyramid of cheerleaders during the assembly and spilt her lunch down Bulk.

At least the day was almost over with, and Tommy was, hopefully, going to walk her home.

"You ready to go?" Tommy asked, walking up next to her.

"I'm ready for this whole day to be over with," Kim confessed as the two of them headed to the park, cutting through it was faster than walking on the side walk.

"That bad huh," Tommy asked, he knew that Kim was having a bad day but he didn't realize that it was that bad.

"You saw what happened at the assembly and lunch right?" Kim demanded.

"Okay so you had a rotten day," Tommy agreed, "So what all went wrong?"

"It all started last night when I had a dream that Rita was my evil stepmother."

Tommy shuddered, "Well I hope you had a Prince Charming to rescue you."

Kim blushed, "Anyway, since then, everything has gone wrong," she was so busy talking to Tommy she didn't see the rock in her path until it was too late.

Tommy quickly reached out and caught her, "I see," he said.

"Luckily today's almost over with." Kim said with a sigh.

"But the bad luck has only just begun," a new voice called out.

"Oh no!" Tommy gasped.

"One of Rita's monsters." Kim moaned.

The monster opened a old fashion jug, and Tommy and Kimberly where bombarded with strong winds, "we need to morph!" Tommy called out.

Kim nodded, but as she reached behind her to grab her morpher, she was lifted up into the air, "Tommy!"

"I'm coming Kimberly!" Tommy insisted, trying hard to get to her, however, a strong blast of wind threw him into a nearby tree causing him to black out.

...

"Tommy!" Kim called out, "Jason, somebody help me!" Her voice echoed in the darkness as some sort of liquid lapped at her feet. All she knew was it wad not water, and with that in mind she did not want to know what it was. She was sure that Tommy, and possibly the others would rescue her sooner or later.

...

Lori looked at the viewing globe, Kim needed help quick, if that wasn't water, she didn't need to know what it was too know that it was bad news.

"Man doesn't Rita know that Kim's a mermaid not a genie. She doesn't need to be kept in a bottle," Zack joked which caused the others to glare at him, "right, probably not a good time for jokes."

"We are teleporting Tommy here now," Alpha explained.

"Lori," Zordon announced, "I want you to stay here in case the others need back up."

With that there was a beam of green light and Tommy was laying down on a cot that Zordon had set up.

Zack winced, "someone's going to have a goose egg when he wakes up."

"Zack you morphin or not?" Jason called out.

...

It was quiet in the command center, with the only sound coming from Alpha as he input information into the computer, as Zordon watched the battle on the viewing globe, "Alpha, lock onto the kids and reverse their teleportation direction."

Lori shot her father a look, but he just gave her a knowing look, "you might want to step back."

Lori stepped back just as her siblings fell out of the sky and onto Tommy, "Poor guy almost has as bad of luck as Kim is today." She muttered as her siblings shook their heads clear and headed back to action.

"This isn't looking good," Zordon muttered, "they need to destroy the jug to defeat the monster, but they need to get Kimberly out first."

Tommy groaned and sat up, holding his head, "Man my head hurts," he groaned.

"Tommy's awake," Lori exclaimed, "Great, I have a plan. I'll zap ugly and you grab the jug and free Kimberly."

...About an hour later...

Kim entered Billy's lab, feeling a lot better.

"Hey," Tommy said, turning on the old TV, "looks like your day is starting to turn around."

"Please, can it get any worst?" Kim asked, leaning forward to turn up the volume of a news report about them. The tv screen suddenly cracked as smoke bellowed from it.

"I believe that was a yes," Trini said.

"Hey, Kim," Zack asked with a laugh, "While you're blowing up things consider blowing up the school."

"I'm sure Angela would appreciate that, seeing as that will cancel homecoming."


	29. Chapter 29

Tommy was suppose to be sparring with Zack, but his mind was far away. Homecoming was two weeks away, and he was hoping to ask Kim to it, but how? He could talk to her about anything but the moment that he tries asking her out his tongue always got all tied up.

He blinked in surprise as he became aware that he was on the ground. Zack was looming over him, "So do you want to tell me what's on your mind?" he asked, "You seem kind of distracted."

"Well," Tommy said, excepting Zack's hand to stand back up, "I guess you're a better choice to talk about this then Jason, he probably would freak out."

"What makes you say that?" Zack asked, arching an eyebrow as the two of them claimed a table.

"Do you know how many people warned me about dating Kim?" Tommy asked with a smirk, "Some Senior thought I was crazy to even offer to walk her home yesterday."

Zack laughed, "Jason does have a reputation," he admitted, "So you want to ask Kim to Homecoming?"

"I was going to ask her when I walked her home the other day, thought maybe it would cheer her up, seeing as she had such a bad day, but that monster, and it just wasn't a good time, what if she says no?"

"Then you better change your name and flee the country and hope Pip and Jason never find out." Zack said, but then he noticed the look Tommy was giving him, "I'm just pulling your leg," he confessed, "Your Jason's best friend, he wouldn't hurt you."

"Jason is my best friend, Kim is his younger sister, me dating her goes against the bro code."

Just then there was a scrapping of a chair, "If Ursula comes in hide me," Jason pleaded as he joined them.

"Finally," Zack said, "It's about time you realize she's a witch."

"I kind of hoped that she would stop being so clingy once school started up again, she joined the art club and theater club but she is still clingy. She wants my tie to match her dress, "It's not even a red dress, how am I suppose to wear something that isn't red?"

"Then break up with her," Tommy offered.

"I don't want to hurt her feelings."

"Oh for crying out loud," a new voice cried out as Lori appeared, pointed a finger at Jason and said, "just tell her to get lost already," she then turned her attention to Tommy, "and for crying out loud, just ask her already, if you hurry you can walk her home."

...

"So what did you want to talk about?" Kim asked, looking up with amusement at Tommy, who had basically chased her down to walk her home, classic sign that he wanted to talk, and the fact that a school dance was coming up gave her a good hint what it was about.

"Yeah, Kim I was wondering if... would you like to..." Tommy faltered, spit it out man just ask her already.

"Tommy, look putties!" Kim suddenly called out as the putties surrounded them.

The fight was intense, and they could only communicate in short sentences. They couldn't call for help, because they couldn't spare the second it would take to activate their communicators. Nor would the putties allow them near enough to the pond to escape.

"Tommy," Kim cried out, trying to free herself from a group of putties, "I dropped my morpher."

Tommy struggled across the path from her, he had even more putties pinning him down, "I can't reach mine."

Kim frowned Tommy needed her, she wiggled her wrist until she could move her hand, after that she was able to freeze the putties around her and break free.

She bent down to pick up her morpher when she saw a pair of golden feet appear in front of her. Goldar had arrived, "say goodbye to the green ranger." He growled as he brought the hilt of his sword down on top of Kim's unprotected head before she even had time to respond.

...

The first thing that Tommy thought was the fact that Goldar could have easily killed Kim, then he realized that he was in the dark dimension. "What do you want from me!" He demanded his eyes flashing green.

"It's quite simple green ranger," Goldar sneered, "fight for Rita, or say good bye to your powers."

"What are you talking about?" Tommy demanded, take his powers, could they really?

Goldar stepped to the side, revealing a green candle that was cheerfully burning, "Your powers will only last until the candle burns out."

Tommy couldn't believe it, they could steal his powers, what about the others?

...

"Rita's trying to regain control of Tommy, I just know it!" Jason growled as he paced back and forth in the command center.

"I tried to help him," Kim said, wincing as she removed an ice pack from her head, refroze it and placed it back on her head, "but Goldar stunned me right as I was about to morph."

"Let's be grateful he didn't do anything worst," Zordon insisted as the alarm went off.

"The Dragon Zord," Jason cried out, "but that means..." Jason trailed off, not that anyone needed him to finish the sentence. Tommy was evil again, and they had to stop him.

"Hold on," Zordon said, "sensors tell me that the Dragon Zord is still in its hiding place."

"Then it's not Tommy?" Kim asked.

"No," Zordon confirmed before turning to Lorelei," I want you to go with your siblings while Kimberly stays here, I'm afraid Goldar gave her a concussion."

...

Tommy struggled with his bonds, even though they were just around his arms and chest, they seemed to hold him in place, so he couldn't get to the candle while Goldar was gone.

His mind was whirling with thoughts, Kim, the others, his powers, Kim, his powers, Kim, how to escape. He could escape, if he had Goldar's sword.


	30. Chapter 30

Everything in the past couple of hours had happened so fast that Lori felt she was still trying to process it, Tommy was no longer a power ranger, at least he was still a mermaid, or was it merman? and as far as she was concern he was still part of the family, he was a hero, powers or not.

Jason had tried his hardest to get the green candle before it was too late, but saving Tommy's life was more important then saving his powers. But still, to have to say goodbye to the green ranger was hard, she just hoped he didn't close himself off after this.

You know what, she thought to herself, I'm not going to let Tommy close himself off from us, even if I have to rope Kim into helping me.

"Tommy," the voice of her father pulled her out of her thoughts, her father had moved to stand next to the former green ranger, "Know that you are always welcomed at our place, I shall talk to your social worker and let her know that if you ever need a place to stay, I have a room available."

"Um..." it was obvious that Tommy had no idea what to say to that, "Thanks..."

...

Kim checked her hair before ringing the door bell, it had been over a day since the green candle incident, and she was starting to get worried, Tommy hadn't even showed up to school that day, and he hadn't finished asking her out. Not that she could blame him for that. He had a lot on his mind.

A middle she woman answered the door, "Yes, can I help you?"

"Is Tommy home, he wasn't at school today?" Kim asked, fidgeting nervously.

"Tommy, I think he is at the park," the woman announced, "Do you know what happened? His depression suddenly got worst, but he won't talk to me about it."

"Depression?" Kim asked, surprised, that was news to her.

"Yeah, he was doing so well, especially after meeting you and your friends, then last night he just was worst. Have you had a fight or something?"

Kim shook her head, her mind racing a hundred miles per hour, "No, I wish I could tell you what is going on, but I promised that I wouldn't."

"Well, as long as someone knows I'm fine with it, I know he has a hard time trusting others, so I won't ask you to break that trust, but if you get to the point you need an adult, let me know."

Kim quickly agreed before heading to the park, somewhere near water no doubt, she reason, somehow she knew that he would take comfort in knowing that he at least still had mermaid powers.

"You know your foster mom is very worried." Kim confessed, approaching him.

Tommy jumped, startled, as he hadn't seen Kim approach him, and slipped into the river behind him. He flashed Kim a glare as he grew a gold tail. However, instead of hauling himself out of the water to dry himself off, he flicked water onto Kim who squealed before dropping onto her back as a mermaid in the river.

"It's not like I got you wet on purpose," Kim sputtered.

"I know but it feels good to know that we still have something in common," Tommy admitted.

"Well, come on," Kimberly insisted, dragging herself out of the water, "we better get dry before someone happens by."

"This is the most secluded place in the park," Tommy pointed out, dragging himself out of the water as well, "no-one ever comes here."

"And I don't want to be here in mermaid form when that changes." Kim insisted.

Five seconds later they were both dry and standing next to each other.

"So," Tommy asked slowly, "what did you want?"

Kim felt a blush creeping across her face, "We're worried about you," she admitted, no that wasn't right, she needed to be more specific, "I'm worried about you," she finally admitted.

Tommy laughed, although it sounded kind of hollow, "I'll be alright promise."

"I know," Kim said, glancing down at the ground, during her toe in th be dirt, "but it doesn't make me miss you less." Kim looked at Tommy with a sad look in her eyes, a look that made Tommy's heart miss a beat, "We're still friends aren't we? I feel like you've been avoiding me."

"No!" Tommy wasn't sure where that came from as he grabbed Kim's hand, "I want to hang out with you guys, it's just... I don't know if I could handle you being called away."

"Oh," Kim said, trying to think of what to do, what to say, "but Tommy, we can still use your help, especially now that school started up again, you know our secrets, all of them, you're basically family, powers or no we need you... I need you."

Tommy blinked in surprise, he had somehow bent down and kissed Kim before he had even realized that he had wanted to kiss Kim. It was like nothing he had ever experience before. It was amazing.

They broke the kiss when they heard a branch snap behind them.

"We have an audience," Tommy hissed, pointing to ripples skimming across the water.

"Lori," Kim whispered back, "and someone is behind us."

"Well then," Tommy said, loudly this time, "would you consider going to the dance with me."

In the bushes someone exclaimed, "Yes," then, a more subtle, "Zack be quiet."

Kim turned around, turning her back to Tommy, and giving her the perfect opportunity to give her siblings the look.

"Kimberly?" Tommy asked, concerned by her reaction.

Kim burst into laughter, "of course, I couldn't make it to easy on you could I."

Tommy slipped his hand into Kim's, it was going to be hard he knew, but for the first time in his life he felt like he belonged, that he had a family. Even if that family was hiding in the bushes watching him ask a girl out.

The end.


End file.
